Not The Way It Was Supposed To Be
by vanagonne
Summary: Takes place in Stefan's Ripper absence in the summer before Elena's birthday and then an AU look at what could have happened had they chased after Stefan earlier and gotten caught despite warnings from Klaus not to do so. Dark in some ways, dirty in others. (D/E centric though there's a large undercurrent of their relationship(s) with Alaric) A/N inside.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: In order for this to make any sort of sense you'll need a very vague memory of late season 2, early season 3. When I say vague I mean vague.**

 **Takes place in Stefan's Ripper absence in the summer before Elena's birthday and then an AU look at what could have happened had they chased after Stefan earlier and got caught despite warnings not to do so. Pretty AU in the reasons as to why Klaus has Stefan and as to why he even needs Elena's blood. The show formulates Stefan hiding Elena's life because Klaus believes Elena needs to be dead for his 'let's make a hybrid army family' plan to work. Then it's discovered her blood is the key so it's fortunate she's alive in a way. In this fic, that sort of applies. I think. Hope it's enjoyable anyhow.**

 **Future chapters to be posted this week after some polishing.**

xxxxx

The rain hit in spatters on the pavement below. Elena could just make out the sorrowful panging of piano keys downstairs. Damon must be playing again. It was a normal sight; the candles dripping wax dangerously onto the piano top; glass of something honey hued and pungent within his grasp; one hand trailing lazily over the keys.

"Do you ever play actual songs?" she'd asked one night.

He'd given her a look that read _fuck off_ before wiggling his fingers and peering deeply into her eyes before delving into an intricate piece that left her mouth hanging open. He could certainly play; he just chose to make noise instead.

It was one of those nights where Elena and Alaric could either sit there in the huge lonely Salvatore Boarding House, or they could sit in the modestly sized memory-riddled Gilbert home staring at each other over a game of Scrabble. They usually chose to be wherever Damon wanted to be when Andie wasn't around. Sometimes Elena wasn't invited, other times they let her tag along. They didn't need to say it; she knew when she wasn't part of something.

This evening Ric had grabbed her wrist as she was heading towards the laundry room downstairs. From his lounging position on the living room couch he had asked her to drive him to the store. So she'd toed on some flip flops and looked at the clearance bins while he grabbed a few cases of beer.

He told her once they got to the main square to turn down the music and take a right. So, they ended up at Damon's. She was relieved to say the least. She wasn't up for drunken Scrabble where she ate too much ice cream and ended up sobbing over a picture of Stefan by the time Ric passed out.

Elena wasn't sure why or how she ended up in Stefan's room as the two men indulged in beer and some music from a time she didn't exist in the kitchen below. Maybe she just needed to say hello. He seemed so far away now. Just a memory. The bed was all unmade and she tried and failed at remembering if it was her that was with him in it last to leave the sheets such a tangled mess. Maybe.

When the piano ceased she sighed and decided to make her way down the stairs and into the large kitchen they'd started spending a lot more time in than before. When Stefan was around they rarely entered this room. She wasn't sure why it was the top pick now. Maybe because every other room held too many memories.

"Beer?" Damon asked as soon as she entered, kicking her flip flops off in the corner and sliding into the barstool next to Ric.

She shrugged. Drunk or not she still felt the void, they all did. Truth be told she usually pretended to keep up but she liked to be the sober one. They got a little ridiculous sometimes and she didn't trust her loose tongue. There were things better left buried. Things Damon kept trying to shovel at ever since they'd grown close over this shared loss of Stefan.

"It's a weekend," Ric reminded her. They pretended like he was a good parental unit during the week. Weekends were fair game when it came to underage drinking.

"Yeah, sure," she agreed, as if they all didn't know she'd accept anyway.

Damon opened the top for her, knowing she had a hard time with anything that wasn't a twist-top. He took a small sip out of it first before sliding it across the granite countertop with a hollow scrape. She waited until Damon's back was to her to take the first gulp. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction of watching her dart her tongue out to taste what he left behind on the lip of the bottle. It was something she couldn't help and the drinking helped her to not dwell on the why.

She listened to the men talk as Damon finished up some dishes he'd let pile up over the past week; all drink glasses of course. Most were coated with the remnants of bourbon, but her eye caught a few with the unmistakable rim of crimson. She knew he'd been drinking more since Stefan was gone but she also knew he'd been taking in a lot more blood. He said it was because he wanted to be stronger for when he rescued Stefan, but Elena suspected he just liked the buzz. She'd seen the marks on Andie's neck and wrists. It was like he didn't even bother to heal her anymore.

Elena had been incredibly unsuccessful at filling the void Stefan left behind. It helped to be around Ric. It helped even more to be around Damon. Having them both was as close as she'd get.

Damon tossed a dish rag into the sink and turned towards them to raise his arms in a long noisy stretch, his back popping and shirt lifting above his low hanging jeans. Her eyes flicked towards the muscles pointing in a V and the patch of dark hair on his pale belly. Then there was that. The missing of that side to her relationship with Stefan; his taut body surging above hers. It didn't help that the elder Salvatore was…well, he was the way Damon was and always would be. She'd even caught herself watching Ric's biceps one day when he was working on her car and laughed out loud that she was _that_ keyed up without Stefan around. Being a teenage girl had its downfalls. She'd just leave it at that.

Caroline told her that maybe she should be spending her time hanging with the girls; moral support and chocolate. Elena wished that were enough but she didn't know how to tell her it just wasn't. Being with these two men was the closest she had to feeling okay. They made her feel safe. They made her feel like she wasn't alone in this. She agreed to a birthday party next week, it seemed to ward Caroline off for the time being.

By the time Elena was done reflecting, she'd finished her beer and was feeling slightly tipsy. She tried to hide it of course because Damon and Ric were relentless when it came to her poor tolerance. They could drink and drink and drink and still be functioning. That's why she had to be careful and pretend. She wasn't being so careful tonight. Tonight felt different. There was a sort of desperation in the air; they'd gone too long without hearing from Stefan. They'd gone too long without any leads.

"Not tonight little lady, no long faces. Drink more. Be merry," Damon admonished, thrusting another beer into her hand that laid on the countertop.

He'd given up on the beer it seemed and was drinking straight from a stout bottle of whiskey. Stefan's whiskey. She propped her chin on her hand and watched Damon drink from it, his neck straining a little with each gulp. She knew just what it tasted of because Stefan had let it trickle from his mouth and into hers before. It had been erotic and playful; she missed that side of him. She watched Damon's lips, flush and full, as he swished a little of it around against his tongue.

Then Ric's hand was at her wrist again, pulling her out of the seat. She wondered briefly why he always took her by the wrist but never by the hand. She followed him down the hall, Damon not too far behind her, as they ended up in the library. Elena chose the arm chair that sat close to the couch, as she always did; Ric and Damon plopping heavily onto the dark leather cushions nearby. They sat closer than most men do but she liked that about them. They were comfortable with one another. There was a trust there that she both admired and grew jealous of. There was such a line between herself and Ric; he was her teacher and her guardian. To get close would be wrong in so many ways…but they were close. Maybe that's why even though he touched her…reached for her, it was by the wrist or a touch on the shoulder.

She loved watching them more than listening. To listen was a waste because their words were always there to take up space and time. She knew they talked differently when she wasn't around. She knew the atmosphere was affected by her presence. So she watched instead. They were like brothers in a way. Not like Stefan and Damon were brothers though; not tense and competitive and laced with such an impenetrable history . This was a brotherhood unmarred by past and present inflictions of pain. They worked together and never against one another. It was easy and it was something they seemingly slipped into after all was forgiven over Isobel.

It was hot and stuffy to her now that the alcohol ran thickly through her veins. She stood and took to cracking open all the windows, sighing into the cool summer breeze. The rain had subsided and left the air smelling damp and earthy.

Ric must have been just drunk enough and maybe a little nostalgic because of the way things flowed tonight; he took her by both hands and pulled her in front of the couch. He placed his long fingers at her hip and grasped her hand in his. She couldn't help but let out a laugh that Damon had often commented was the goofiest laugh he'd ever heard, when Ric danced her to some old scratchy tune on the record player.

Damon stood nearby, sipping at his drink and trying not to grin too big, but she still caught it over Ric's shoulder. With a pop and a few scratches, the song transitioned into something slower. It was something they'd never done before aside from quick hugs, but Ric drew her into his chest and she rested her cheek against the prominent muscles beneath his shirt. She closed her eyes and breathed him in; aftershave and damp sweat. A feeling of safety and warmth washed over her; he felt like the closest thing to home she had.

She opened her eyes for a moment to find that Damon had moved to the couch and was splayed back lazily, watching them with heavy lidded eyes. Maybe it was the closeness of Ric's body combined with the way Damon peered at her, but she felt herself grow warm in places she really shouldn't. Another reason why she tried to avoid drinking too much around them.

She closed her eyes again, hoping it would all just melt away but come the end of the song she just felt like the curtains that were billowing in the summer breeze; open and free. Why did it have to be so hard anyway? Why couldn't she climb into the spaces between these men and feel okay for a moment?

So she didn't return to her designated seat, she nestled between them on the couch, crossing her legs. Her toe nudged Damon's shin slightly when she moved to the beat of the next song. Each song made her think of a time long before she was born; black and white photos and clunky cars. They made her think of summer nights and long slow kisses.

She turned a little to face Ric, haphazardly pushing her bottom slightly into Damon's thigh, "I don't want there to be any more doppelgangers."

They were all quiet then. She had her reasons. She didn't know how to describe how it felt to learn you were just a copy. It felt damning in a way to be tied to so many things that she just didn't care to have a thing to do with. It felt strange and unsettling sometimes that she'd met and fallen in love with a Salvatore at all. Katherine had been with both of them. Both.

"Magic finds a way," Damon murmured behind her. She was dizzy so she let her forehead fall to Ric's shoulder.

"You okay?" Ric asked softly, his lips close to her hairline. She wondered why he hadn't moved on yet after Jenna. He really was a catch. She didn't let herself look at him like that but if she were to…well, he'd be somebody worth having. Too soon. Really too soon. That was all.

"She's fine, she just needs to get her mind off of the bad and on to the good," Damon replied for her, tugging her up with both hands on her shoulders.

She faced him then with a small smile, blinking up into those ice blue eyes.

"Want some water?" he asked.

She must seem pretty drunk as she'd never actually gotten this drunk in front of them before. But she had a pretty good handle on things. So long as she didn't get the spins and wasn't seeing double, she was fine.

"No, I'm okay," she whispered, biting her lip when his lips parted slightly.

He looked away so she did too. Her eyes trained on her bare toes until her vision became unfocused and time stretched too long. It was interrupted by a loud belch from the couch, causing Elena to startle and then let out a stream of laughter.

"You have the goobiest laugh," Damon said once again.

Elena nudged his feet with hers. "You always say that," she said softly.

"Doesn't mean I hate it," he replied in kind.

Then they were all silent as they took in what the night felt like. Lines were being touched on a little. There were clear boundaries that weren't so clear this particular night and she supposed nobody knew what to do or say next. Truth was, she liked touching and being close to both of them in these ways.

With that realization she stood quickly and took a few steps away, raking her hands through her hair. They were silent behind her, surely exchanging glances and speaking in all sorts of ways that she wasn't meant to see or understand. They were probably agreeing this had all gone too far and they should get her to bed.

She was right, of course. It was Ric who took her by the wrist and said softly, "Let's get you to bed."

He put her in Damon's bed of all places. She assumed it was because they figured she didn't like being in Stefan's. She wasn't tired but she played the part and let Ric pull the comforter over her body and click off the bedside lamp before whispering a goodnight.

She fiddled with her phone for a while, keeping herself awake. There was a curiosity that she needed to quench. She wanted to know who they were when she wasn't around.

It was nearly an hour of playing games and texting Bonnie that she finally crept as quietly as she could manage down the dark hall. She could smell the summer air leaking into the house from the parted windows climbing the stairs coolly. Damon was back at the piano, making random heavy notes into the night.

That meant they were in the living room now; even easier for her to spy.

She sat in the hallway midpoint, out of sight but within earshot of the men.

"This can't happen again," she heard Alaric state.

"Nothing happened," Damon replied with his usual nonchalance.

"Be careful with her. She's still a girl Damon," Ric went on.

Elena felt the air stop in her lungs. She wished the hall lights had been left off. It was too bright and she wanted to be as hidden as possible. She played with the red rug beneath her toes and listened for more.

Damon said nothing though and it led her to believe they'd talked about this before. Elena wasn't used to Damon keeping his mouth shut. He generally spat out anything he wanted to say. He was different with Alaric, he listened.

"He's not coming back Ric," Damon finally said.

The tears hit her without warning and without mercy. They trickled hot and stinging down the same path of her cheeks, collecting down her throat and soaking her shirt. She didn't want to hear more. She couldn't. So she crept back upstairs and straight into Stefan's room where she shed all her clothes except her panties, and pulled on his white tee and boxers, rolling them up a few times so that they sat as short as her cheer shorts. She hung her bra on his door handle like she always did before crawling into bed with him.

Her phone buzzed after a few minutes and she bit her lip when she saw it was Damon.

 _I know you're awake. I'll make you another drink. I'm sad too. Less sad around you_

Drunken confessions of Damon Salvatore. She was down the stairs and entering the living room without a second thought.

They were both on the same couch, despite there being two. Damon held out his hand and pulled her between them again. They both eyed her change in clothing but neither said anything, though Damon breathed her in. Maybe he missed Stefan's scent too.

When Ric left the room to empty his bladder, Damon's hand fell on her bare thigh. He squeezed lightly and murmured, "I'm not giving up on him. I just don't think he can come back after the things he's done. Not until you're long gone."

Elena felt a spark of jealousy and disappointment that her life would expire while Damon's would go on and on, making it possible to see Stefan again. Anything was possible with immortality. She'd never thought about that. She'd never wanted it until now. The realization made her bury her face in her hands.

Damon pulled her into his side, her bent knees falling into his lap and her forehead burrowing into his neck. She felt his pulse, steady and sure. His scent mingled with Stefan's and once again it sparked something that shouldn't be touched right now.

She let her hands slide off of her face. She tucked one in a fist behind Damon's lower side; the other she tentatively placed on his chest. He ever so lightly ran his fingertips up and down the length of her arm, remaining still and wordless.

Ric ended up passing out on the other couch after he saw the two of them wrapped up in one another. He didn't say much, just looked at one, then the other. His eyes closed and he slipped into a deep sleep. They watched him for a while, breathing in time.

"Where do you want to sleep?" Damon whispered into her hair.

She was too relaxed to fight the shiver his words sent down her body. She trembled against him for a moment before whispering back, "Wherever."

So he took her to his room which should feel wrong but it didn't. It felt comforting. He peeled back the covers that she'd tried to lay neatly in place before so that she could slip inside. He covered her gently without looking into her eyes but she took in every line and sharp curve of his face. Stefan was striking, but Damon was…beautiful.

She watched him move around his room, playing out some routine he'd probably been doing for decades. He shed his clothing, keeping his boxers on, and folded his dirty clothes before disappearing with them into his closet. While he was out of sight she pulled off the boxers and flung them to the floor.

He noticed them there when he clicked off the lamps, kicking them further away and crawling over her to his side of the bed. She shouldn't be okay with this but it felt so comforting that she couldn't even begin to force herself out of the bed.

She had to laugh when Ric came stumbling in drunk and half asleep. She scooted to the middle, letting him take her place.

"This is fucked up, I'll be the one to say it," he mumbled.

"I've been in stranger situations," Damon yawned, his fingers finding their way into her hair. She let him run his fingers through her tangles, shivering each time they brushed against her scalp.

Ric continued, his speech slurred and barely comprehensible, "Hands to yourself Damon."

Damon chuckled breathily in her ear, "He'll keep mumbling things all night."

She wondered how often they slept near one another. She wondered more why it didn't strike her strange.

Elena turned on her side facing Ric, hands tucked under her cheek. She figured it was safer than facing Damon. Looking at Damon did things to her and to him. It was something they both knew but never talked much about…much like Isobel and Katherine and everything in between.

He continued to stroke her hair with a feather light touch. It was extremely lulling. Eventually his hand dropped and stilled somewhere close to her lower back.

"I keep thinking about what you said…about the things I felt while he was gone," Elena whispered.

"We don't have to cross those lines tonight Elena," he whispered back.

She rolled over, her breasts pushing into his hand that was resting against the mattress. He jerked away and closed his eyes briefly.

"I'm not crossing any lines. I'm just letting you know that…if he never comes back then we will move on. We will figure out how to be okay without him," she replied softly.

He sucked in a little breath and then slowly breathed out. His eyes flicked back and forth between hers for a long time. She wished she'd thought to part his French doors that led out to the balcony. She was starting to sweat between the two men's body heat.

"On a scale of one to ten, how drunk are you?" he asked with the faintest hint of a smile.

"Eleven," she joked with a grin.

"Can I tell you something that you hopefully won't remember in the morning?" he asked, nudging the tip of his nose into hers.

"I'll probably remember," she replied.

"Hm, best leave it alone then," he smiled slow and sweet.

Ric let out a long snore and Elena felt safe enough to drift to sleep.

Xxxx

The next time Elena and Ric popped over to see Damon was a few days before her birthday party. They were restless at home and with Jeremy darting off for the night, it was always more entertaining at the boarding house.

This time Ric told her just as he put the car in park, "Let's keep it to a three beer minimum tonight."

"What about liquor?" Elena asked with a teasing smile.

"One liquor drink, two beers," he replied, nodding towards Andie's car.

Elena shrugged and checked her phone again. Damon never did text her back when they stated they were on their way.

"Maybe you should go in first," Elena suggested.

"He's a vampire, he knows we're here already," Ric replied, waving his hand at her absently in response. They had grown used to this relationship Damon carried on with Andie. Elena had never seen him grow cruel with the extremely beautiful news woman but others had hinted towards it.

So they entered the home noisier than usual just in case, Ric calling out to Damon.

"We're in here," Andie called cheerfully.

They found the couple in the kitchen, Damon obviously drunk and Andie squirming in his arms. Elena's eyes narrowed when she saw the blood on Damon's lips, his teeth stained crimson as he flashed her a brief smile.

"Should we go?" Ric asked slowly, standing a little too closely to Elena.

"No, I was just leaving. I have _work_ , remember Damon?" Andie laughed playfully, as if her neck wasn't dripping with blood.

He took her by the chin and peered into her eyes, "Go clean up in the bathroom," and nipped at her nose.

Elena pursed her lips when he reached out to slap Andie's ass while holding Elena's gaze. Something flicked inside her chest so she moved to follow Andie down the hall as soon as Ric tore Damon's attention elsewhere.

"Oh, hello Elena," Andie smiled into the mirror as Elena entered Damon's bathroom.

"Are you okay?" Elena asked, wincing at the bite marks Andie dabbed at with a wash cloth.

Andie just rolled her eyes and chuckled, "Yeah, he's been upping the blood since Stefan…you know."

"Yeah…" Elena murmured.

She jumped when Damon appeared in the mirror behind them. He placed his hands on Elena's shoulders and murmured, "Girl talk?"

Andie spun around and smiled brightly, leaning over Elena to kiss Damon firmly on the lips, "Exactly! Bye, I'll call you later."

When it was just the two of them and a trail of Andie's perfume, Elena finally let out a breath and stared at his reflection in the mirror. Of all the thoughts to cross her mind, it was that their dark hair and piercing gazes matched in intensity in this moment…for a moment she let the thought pass through her; they looked good together. Dark and precarious.

He scared her sometimes, it was true. There was a side to him Stefan warned her about; a side that tiny voice in the back of her mind warned her about.

Without much thought she watched herself raise her hand to tentatively lay across one of his hands that grasped her shoulders.

"Damon?" she asked softly.

"Hm?" he replied, licking his lips as if to finally notice the crimson stains smeared across his mouth.

"Do you hurt her?" she asked a little louder. His fingers twitched under her palm.

"I have," he admitted, sliding his free hand down her arm to rest at her extended elbow.

Her heart thumped in response. She was half scared, half intrigued.

"Why?" she asked breathily.

"It's in my nature," he replied.

"Would you hurt me too?" she asked boldly.

He rested his chin on the top of her head, blue eyes glowingly trained on hers. His face looked different now. Softer. He never did answer, and she started regretting ever asking the longer they stared each other down.

"Elena?" Ric called from the hallway.

Elena stepped away from Damon, her skin growing cold in all the places he'd been against her.

The rest of the night went slow and uneventful. They sat in the library and listened to the distant rumble of thunder interrupt the record playing scratchily in the background of their silence. Elena had three beers and only spoke when Damon told her goodnight.

"Goodnight," she whispered, biting her lip when she felt his fingertips briefly touch at her lower back as she exited the front door.

In the car, Ric told her that after her party, it was probably best they took a break for a while from Damon.

"Why?" Elena asked, hiccupping on the fullness of her belly from the beer.

"He's not in a good place with the whole Stefan thing. It's better we give him some space," he replied firmly.

Elena knew that it didn't apply to him. She knew it was just her that should stay away.

Xxxxx

It could have been the rain. Something about the way it weighed down the air that summer night left Elena crumpled in front of the small rotating fan that used to sit in her parent's bedroom. Now it was hers. The sound helped her sleep somehow; the whooshing hum shushing the demons.

The house was silent but her phone was alive; buzzing hard against the wood floor near her bare toes. Caroline, Bonnie, Alaric, Jeremy, Damon. One after the other. But never Stefan.

"Just give me a minute," she whispered to the room, her hair brushing off her shoulders as the fan came back around to stare her down with a few seconds of strong gusts.

It was Alaric who finally got her to the boarding house where she immediately trudged up the stairs and straight into Stefan's room. Getting dressed was easy, accepting the necklace from Damon twisted her heart in a way that left her craving something unattainable; unrecognizable.

She stared at her glassy chocolate eyes as Damon clasped the necklace around her rigid neck. Who was this girl that floated in a world of Salvatores and Petrovas and death? When he looked at her like that, did he know how it burned like fire in her gut? Did he know how scared she was?

She was an adult now. Happy Birthday, you didn't die yet. Pretty impressive given she was meddling in a world of vampires and werewolves.

She'd made her rounds, wincing when something dark was spilled on the couch she and Stefan fucked on just a few months ago. Buzzed enough to bump back into Ric and Damon and slam back another drink after hearing the girls from her chem. class whisper that Stefan had broken up with her when he found out she'd slept with Mr. Saltzman. If they only knew…

The only thing to sober her up was the intricate map in Damon's closet and his face when she slapped him. As if the universe ticked by on cue, his phone buzzed and she watched him slowly pull it out, his cheek still red from the strike of her palm.

 _Stefan_.

xxxxx

The old house looked unoccupied if it weren't for the wide open ornate doors and haunting music escaping down the dim entry hall. Damon muttered to her several times that something wasn't right. He told her but something kept her planted at his side. The dark pound of piano keys mingling with the scream of violins made Elena feel like she'd walked into a nightmare.

Elena fought the urge to grab onto Damon's arm that he held stiffly behind him in a position that was intended to tell her to stay. His fingers were splayed out stiffly as if on standby to push her back. There was fear and then it was gone; replaced by a thick blanket of cold regret and denial. Blood. It was streaking the floor as if someone was badly injured and… _crawled_ down the long and narrow hall.

"Damon?" she whispered, her mouth feeling as if it were made of cotton.

The look on his face when he paused to glance back at her caused her gut to pinch. He opened his mouth to say something; surely to convince her to run back to the car. But then a faint voice carried in the sharp cold air.

Elena's heart sank. It had to be Andie.

Something reached Damon's ears that didn't carry to her own. She watched his face fall and his eyes squeeze shut, then recover in a matter of seconds. She walked into his hand, his rigid fingers jabbing hard into her abdomen.

"Run," he whispered, pushing further into her skin.

Her muscles twitched under the single word, her body screaming for her to obey. Her mind halted any intentions when she saw him. Stefan.

He appeared at the end of the hall, taking a few steps and standing directly in the blood. His boots made a sticky sound as he shifted, his eyes boring into hers and then into Damon's. Elena watched the expression on Stefan's face range from surprise to anger to defeat. He probably didn't think his brother would have allowed Elena anywhere near this place and here she was.

Damon's hand finally dropped when it was apparent Stefan had no intention of letting them go. He was compelled no matter what he wanted beneath it all. Elena tried to avoid stepping in the blood as they approached the end of the hall as sluggish as the music that blasted through an old radio.

"Brother," Damon muttered when they reached the end.

Elena wanted to say something to him; touch him somehow. Warmth and colors drew her attention to the left.

It was as if the air was syphoned out of her lungs. A ringing was left in her ears and her brain struggled to keep up with what her senses rapidly delivered.

 _Drip_.

 _Drip._

 _Drip._

Damon's hand was crushing her wrist, yanking her back. She slid a little on the blood, falling into Stefan. God his skin was like ice. Andie hung lifeless, her throat slit and drenching the floor below. Elena had never seen so much blood in her life. It looked more like corn syrup and food coloring. This couldn't be real.

The violin sped up a little, as did Klaus's brushstrokes. His back was to them, taut and damp with sweat. He was humming merrily along with the tune as his arm swept wide and Elena noticed a brilliant crimson across the canvas. That's when she heard the sound Damon made.

Klaus glanced over his shoulder with a look of vacancy. Despite the mess all around him, his face appeared unmarred. Elena shrunk into Stefan's rigid side as a nefarious smile turned the Original's plump lips at the corners. He blinked slowly and turned back to his canvas, extending his paintbrush just so to dab at Andie's gaping neck. The sound her of blood spattering across the canvas barely concealed Damon's strangled protest. The coppery smell caused her throat to constrict and she audibly gagged, her palm slapping over her mouth to keep down the bourbon she'd had at her party.

Klaus's voice sounded out above the music, slow and deep, accent clipped and jeering. "It's called _Fatuousness_."

Elena swallowed hard, pushing slightly away from Stefan and further away from the doorway.

Klaus raised his paintbrush to dab Andie's lifeless lips red with her blood, "You've been studying for your SAT's haven't you Elena? Can you tell the class what fatuousness means?"

She couldn't find her voice; afraid if her lips merely parted she would scream or vomit. Her eyes tore away from Andie's pale face with her painted on lips to settle on Damon's clenched jaw and narrowed eyes. He looked to be turning something over in his mind. She knew this face. It was something that lived between deep thought and deep regret. His eyes stared back into hers but they were void of any recognition that he could even see her.

"It means being stupid. Just like the lot of you. Step forward," Klaus beckoned with a finger. Elena swallowed thickly and glanced at Stefan who stood motionless and austere.

She moved to take a step but Damon's grasp to her wrist was painfully hard. She froze and bit her lip, knowing her fear was thickly present to the vampires in the candle lit room. Elena flinched when Klaus flashed in front of them to snap Damon's arm with a flick of the wrist.

As Damon growled in pain Klaus probed his eyes and compelled, "You. Stay. Put."

The adrenalin was kicking in but so was the logical part of Elena's brain. She shouldn't have put them in this situation. Why did she insist on coming along when Stefan asked to meet Damon…alone. They were going to die at best…

Klaus sighed and put his hand under Elena's chin, but she held his gaze steadily, feeling an eerie calm wash over her. He tilted her face, this way and that, misleadingly gentle eyes roving over her soft features.

"What is it about this face that brings men down such a dreary path…" he pondered gently. The words dripped so gracefully from his articulate tongue. Thick like honey; syrupy blood running down his chin after tearing into her neck in the fire warmed woods. She shook her head of the memory.

Elena felt his other hand before she could react and when he pulled it away she noted her vervain necklace dangling from his fingers. He wiggled them a little before tossing her only protection to the floor. It clattered loudly in the otherwise still room. Damon, now healed after snapping his arm back into place with a grunt, stood still under compulsion while Stefan surveyed the situation with calculating eyes.

She knew it was coming when her eyes locked onto Klaus's. He could compel her to do anything in this moment and it should terrify her. She wasn't terrified though, not with Damon behind her and Stefan nearby. They wouldn't be able to save her but they were _here_. Two ancient marble statues standing guard; comforting rather than helpful.

"I am growing rather tired of you two trailing after us. More than that, I'm a little angered that you're still alive Elena. I don't like tricks. I think you need a little bit of closure. Perhaps Stefan too. So have on with it, go tell him goodbye," Klaus murmured.

Elena blinked several times before realizing what it was he said. Before he could say otherwise, Elena flew towards Stefan and grasped his face in both her hands. His eyes fell and his façade crumbled; but he didn't move even as she whispered apologies and kissed the sharp edges of his cheekbones.

"Enough. We have things to do; big boy business if you will," Klaus stated in a bored tone before turning to Damon, "Come forward; you too Elena."

Damon crossed his arms and eyed Elena warily as he stood before Klaus. Klaus smiled a little, folding his hands neatly at his abdomen. His eyes probed Damon's and Elena knew he was going to compel him a much worse fate. Dagger to the chest maybe. Burn under the sunlight while they watched him turn to ashes. Her heartbeat filled the room as it started to seemingly gallop out of her chest. She thought of horse and carriage and the days before she formed supernaturally inside her mother's womb.

Elena didn't move until Stefan nudged her gently but with firm hands away from him. She tried but failed to hear what he whispered as time seemed to expand and all she saw were Damon's ice blue eyes as the color seemed to drain out of his face. He was grayer than marble now. He looked like a corpse until he moved just so; a twitch of the brow and pulse of tendon along his neck.

Elena had to shake her head several times to comprehend what Klaus had just compelled Damon to do. It echoed around in her head like a ping pong ball let loose in an enclosed room.

" _Every time you so much as think of coming after your brother, you will have your way with his girl. Just to be sure you all understand. You'll do it now in front of him."_

Elena breathed out, "No," at the same time that Stefan stepped forward and exclaimed, " _Fight_ it Damon."

" _Sit_ down Stefan. What better way to prove your allegiance and ensure your brother stays away for good?" Klaus sighed, walking to retrieve the amber filled decanter.

He poured a drink and Elena was surprised when he walked over and stepped between her and Damon, blocking her view of him momentarily, "Here you go love, you'll be needing this. You're shaking like a leaf."

She grasped the glass and looked into it. Funny, she hadn't noticed but the whiskey quaked from the tremors her body was producing. She took it in two gulps, coughing at the last and nearly dropped the empty glass if it weren't for Damon reaching out to catch it. Her mouth tasted like burnt cedar.

Their eyes met briefly and Elena's heart sank. There was no way he was going to be able to fight this. All she saw was defeat and despair; cold granite behind dilated pupils. For a moment she forgot Stefan was just a mere few feet away, breathing heavily into the cold room. Elena hadn't realized how cold the old home had become. With no fire crackling in the fireplace behind them and the cool air from the drafty windows circling at her bare ankles, the tiny hairs throughout her body rose.

Damon set the glass down and filled it up, knocking it back. He did that several more times until Klaus sighed heavily, "On with it. Stefan and I have other engagements tonight."

Elena looked with wide eyes towards Stefan and croaked out, "Do something."

God… his face when she said it.

Yet, he did nothing. She knew deep down he was protecting her and his brother. He was going to sit there and watch his brother and his girlfriend and there was nothing she could say to change that.

So she turned to Klaus and asked as strongly as she could manage, "Just compel us to stay away. Compel me to forget who he is. I don't care, just not this. Don't do that to him."

She herself wasn't even sure which him she was referring to. Probably both.

Damon turned away from her then and Elena felt a touch of hope. He made it two steps and then he was in front of her, breathing hot air onto her face from flared nostrils. The alcohol smelled better on his breath than it tasted in all the crevices of her dry mouth. His eyes were squeezed shut and his jaw clenched and unclenched.

Elena's heart fell and she felt an anger boil up as Klaus stated, "He just doesn't have the will power to fight my compulsion, love. It's because deep down he would love to take you in front of Stefan. It's a brother thing, you wouldn't understand."

She bit her lip, hating the way Damon looked and hating that she could so clearly see the blurry outline of Stefan in her peripheral as she stated, "It's okay Damon. This will be okay."

She said the words but she didn't quite believe them. Not when her heart was so painfully loud to her own ears. She couldn't imagine how deafening the pounding was to the vampires standing so close to her. There were so many thoughts jumping in and out of her head. She thought about how she'd only ever been with two men. She even started to think about the deeply hidden parts of herself that drifted to thoughts of Damon in the dead of night.

Damon's hands lifted towards her cheeks but they hovered there and his face looked torn. She lifted her gaze to lock onto his and she knew, somehow, that he was torn on how to engage in this compelled act. He could simply bend her over the couch right now, lift her white birthday dress above her waist and pull her cotton panties to the side. It would be quick and easy. But Elena knew what was in his mind because it was in hers too. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. They meant too much to one another to do this in some detached degrading fashion. He was her friend and he'd been wonderful to her in Stefan's absence.

On the other hand, that just may hurt Stefan even more. But it wasn't Stefan's despairing eyes she was staring into in this moment.

So Elena shakily found the zipper behind her and slowly unzipped her dress. The jagged scrape of metal moving along a track seemed magnified in the moment. Damon immediately shook his head and zipped her back up. The contact of his fingers scraping up her back with the zipper caused him to jerk back.

Damon pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned loudly, turning to his brother but speaking to the ceiling, " _Fuck_. Stef, you're going to have to stop me. Stake me. Something."

"No!" Elena immediately exclaimed, reaching out to grab Damon's arm.

Somehow in the moments between his plea with Stefan and her hand tugging him back, his mouth covered hers and her knees gave out. His arm caught her weight at the bend of her lower back. There was the smallest of moments when the flesh of her lips sunk into the cooler flesh of his that everything else disappeared. It was all the memories of Damon and who he was flashing through her mind and playing on the back of her fluttering eyelids. Black crows and drops of crimson swirled in amber burning liquid.

The sound of slick saliva smacking as he broke away caused her eyes to snap open and flit over to Stefan. She didn't miss the wetness to his eyes or the way his hands clenched into balls by his sides. She saw it all just as he was seeing her now. Her eyes didn't leave Stefan's as Damon dropped to his knees to close his eyes in an ill attempt to fight this. Only when Damon's fingers, feather light and searing trailed up her calves, did her eyes shut.

His fingers dug into her hips and he tugged her down to the floor. The only thing her mind really concentrated on was how much her knees hurt digging into the hard wood beneath her. She wasn't sure what to do with her hands. Damon was tucking the sheets of hair that fell into her bowed face behind her ears repeatedly, muttering curse words she'd never really heard come out of his mouth before now.

She lifted her hands tentatively to place them on his shoulders. She could fight him; push him away. But she'd probably only end up getting hurt and Damon would never forgive himself. She wasn't thinking, she was purely instinctual in these moments, so when she leaned forward and breathed him in, it seemed the most natural thing to do. His scent grounded her in a way. It was safe. He was safe.

She reached for the buttons on his jeans but he stopped her. She didn't know if it was for her sake or his brother's, but he murmured, "You don't have to do that, just close your eyes."

So she did but she didn't want to tell him that it made her feel worse to do so. It made her feel more like something was happening to her instead of her being a part of this too. But those thoughts drifted away when his hands guided her gently to a laying position. She winced at the feeling of the hard floor meeting the back of her head but that was immediately remedied by his hand sliding under it.

Her eyes opened at the sound of his zipper and she lifted up on her elbows to look down at him. Suddenly she needed to look at him. She didn't want this to be something that destroyed them.

She lifted up a little when his fingers slid up her dress and tugged at her waistband, sliding her underwear down her legs. She noticed he wasn't really looking at her; his eyes were unfocused on the floor nearby. But when he glanced down at her slightly parted thighs visible to only him under her dress, he took in a deep breath before lightly grasping painfully at her bare hipbones. She could feel in his clutch that he hated himself already.

"For crying out loud. Can we get on with it, I should have been a little more descriptive about the time sensitivity with such a task," Klaus droned on from behind her. She had almost forgotten he was there too.

She glanced at Stefan but his eyes were trained on his hands that were wrung so tightly she knew he must be hurting.

Damon pursed his lips and hovered a little over Elena, nestling between her spread knees, "Yeah, you see, this isn't exactly a turn on for me."

Elena bit her lip and pushed herself up to thread one hand into the hair that sat at the nape of his neck. God it felt weird to touch him like this. She peered into his eyes and whispered as soft as she could, in hopes that only he would hear, "It's just you and me. It's okay."

Then she pressed her lips tentatively to his. Damon breathed out from his nose and it filled hers. He smelled so good…familiar, and it licked at something in her belly. She parted her lips and made a sound into his mouth that was beyond any control. Whether her boyfriend was watching her or not, there was no control to the way her body responded to the feeling of Damon pushing inside of her for the first time. It was dangerous, this feeling.

She didn't pretend he was someone else, she only pretended that she was alone. She pretended this was something that was okay, that Stefan had long ago left her life. There was no shame, no prying eyes. There was only Damon and the trust she'd slowly built up on in Stefan's absence.

xxxx

The car ride was the kind of silent that made any of the smallest of movements noticeable. The moan and groan of leather below Elena as she adjusted her weight repeatedly on the drive to her home was the only sound that masked her still pounding heart.

She was sure she was bleeding all over her white dress and Damon's seat. The perfect night to start her period. She'd felt the cramping and knew it was coming, she guessed having sex just hurried up the process or something.

There was still a dull ache between her legs that she couldn't figure out if she liked or not. He had filled her and in the midst of it all and the sharpness that came with her cervix dipping over and over and her insides squeezing around him, she'd been surprised at the way her body responded to his. It was as if she could still feel him inside of her and it was both unsettling and satisfying. She hadn't expected to respond at all under the circumstances and saw the surprise in his eyes too as she tried to hide it from the other men in the room.

They weren't halfway home before Damon asked softly, "Are you okay?"

"Yes," she replied into a sigh. She'd meant to say it with more believability but she supposed she failed after glancing at the sight of Damon's white knuckles at the steering wheel.

Elena snuck her fingers between her legs to check on the situation. Probably the oddest period mishap she'd ever had and that included not knowing how to use a tampon when she started her period in the middle school bathroom.

She sighed when her fingers came back bloody and there was no use hiding it. "Sorry," she muttered, wiping it on her dress. It was ruined anyway.

"Don't worry about that," Damon replied gently. He sounded like he was afraid she'd break. Like what he had done to her had broken her already. Then his voice was low and hard, kind of like when he was angered and warning her away, "Did I hurt you?"

She peered at his profile and noted the look of determination on his face. He didn't look the way he sounded. He looked anything but. He looked ready to rip someone apart.

"No. You were…it was…this is just bad timing at its finest. Guess I forgot to pack a tampon on my brilliant let's go save Stefan mission," she replied. Suddenly talking felt much better than silence.

"It's not your fault. It's mine. I should have listened to you," she added and reached out to touch his arm. He jerked away.

"Wow…" she muttered, crossing her arms, "was it really that bad?"

" _Wasn't it?!"_ he practically yelled.

"We made it out alive Damon. Stefan's alive. Now we'll just have to figure out another way," she replied.

She could tell by the way he clenched the steering wheel in the same fashion he clenched his teeth that he was fighting something.

"There is no fucking other way. If I so much as _think_ about saving Stefan then I'm breaking down your bedroom door," Damon spat.

"So I'll worry about that part. You just need to help me," Elena replied, a little startled by his tone.

Damon let out a scoff of laughter, "You don't remember what he compelled of you. I forgot, he made sure of that."

Elena looked at him confused, immediately searching her brain for a memory that she must not be allowed to reach.

Damon pulled into her driveway and turned off the car in obviously agitated motions. He turned to her and said, "go ahead, start thinking about a way we can save Stefan, I'd love to hear your plan. Really."

She furrowed her brows and mumbled, "Well I'd like to talk with Bonnie to see if we can put a locater spell on him so that we at least know where he is at all times. So we don't lose him."

Damon was watching her intently and that was when she felt the pain. She looked down and saw that she had sliced into her wrist with a shard of mirror that she'd apparently broken from her small compact in her purse. She was bleeding profusely in pulsing gushes and that's when she heard her panicky gasps above the sounds of Damon talking calmly about how he was officially on suicide watch.

"Why would he try to kill me knowing Stefan wants me alive?!" she asked shakily as Damon bit into his wrist and shoved it towards her mouth. He spoke as she gagged on the metallic liquid that ran down her throat.

"He knows I won't let you die," Damon muttered, pulling his wrist away the moment she started coughing.

Elena watched her wrist heal quickly and shuddered at the sight of her forearm completely soaked in blood.

"Let's get you into the shower," Damon stated.

Xxxx

When Elena emerged from her bathroom with her hair wrapped in a towel and a powder blue robe tied tightly around her damp body, she startled at the sight of Damon and Alaric standing in her room. Two drinking buddies and a heartbroken teen. She was sure there was some indie movie about such things.

"So we came up with a plan of sorts," Alaric finally muttered, looking clearly upset and concerned. The corners of his eyes seemed to dip downwards more than they did so naturally. Eyes dark and chin set.

"Yeah, what's that?" she asked hoarsely, walking slowly to her dresser that Damon was propped against. She snuck a look up into his eyes, her stomach jolting at the memory of him plunging inside of her on perpetual replay. She still couldn't believe it had happened. _Damon_. The feelings it all stirred even despite the circumstances.

She'd now slept with three men in her eighteen years of life, two of them more than a century old. What the hell that mattered anymore she didn't know, but her mind paused on the fact for much longer than she cared for.

"Elena, meet my cock block," Damon held his hands out as if presenting Alaric.

"Just add it onto my long list of the strangest responsibilities of being your stand-in guardian," Ric muttered, rubbing his face with both hands.

"Great…" Elena sighed. She grabbed what she needed from her drawers and closed herself into her bathroom. Only then did she sink to the ground and the tears found her. She was good at silent crying, she'd had many years of practice. It felt like an internal hug; ribs crushing like bony angel wings around her torn heart.

She missed Stefan, she worried for him. There was little they could do now to save him. If only she could call him and at least let him know that there were always loop holes and she'd always be looking for a way to save him. There was always Bonnie…

The door splintered open and Elena's jaw dropped when she realized she was standing in the middle of the bathroom gripping a pair of scissors lodged into her abdomen. Damon and Alaric all but pounced on her, Damon's wrist in her mouth seconds after Alaric pulled the scissors from her belly with a thick suctioning sound. This time it hurt and the tears were streaming down her face as she forced herself to swallow Damon's blood once again.

"This is going to get interesting…" Damon muttered.

Xxxx


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thank you for all the reviews, favs, and follows so far!**

 **Song used in a later portion of this fic is** _ **Day Old Hate**_ **by City and Colour**

Xxxx

The three of them ended up staying in the living room. Damon and Ric agreed it was a nice common place where they could all keep their eye on one another. Elena knew they meant so they could both keep an eye on her. It seemed Damon had much better self-control than herself because not once had he come within a foot of her since rescuing her yet again in her blood spattered bathroom.

She was on one end of the couch, Alaric on the other, with Damon lying on the floor with just a pillow. Elena tried and failed several times to convince Damon that he could go home; she'd be fine with Alaric to stop her. Neither man would hear of it though, they insisted on the three of them sticking together until the compulsion was either lifted or there was just no need to go after Stefan any longer.

The only cure for wandering thoughts was to get completely wasted on bourbon so that's what they did. Alaric kept the conversation running with stories that had Elena and Damon laughing and listening in earnest. She loved the way Damon's laugh sounded against Alaric's. It was the wind and sea. But then there were those moments that silence settled between them and Ric would pour another shot for each of them to dull the demons.

Elena caught Damon's eye as the fuzziness set into her belly and everything seemed easier to accept. She offered a small smile, tilting her head to the side in an attempt to let him know she was okay and she wanted him to be too. So they slept together in front of two people, worse things could happen!

That thought made her sputter with laughter; the kind of laughter that just kept building on itself until there were tears and an aching gut.

"Good God woman, care to share with the rest of the class?" Ric asked, nudging her thigh with his outstretched toe.

"Sorry Mr. Saltzman," Elena wheezed between laughs. This only caused a fresh wave of giggles to come over her at the realization that the word 'class' triggered an automatic response to call him Mr. Saltzman.

"Girls and whiskey…" Damon muttered, covering his eyes with his arm, resting the bottle on his belly.

"I gotta pee," Elena stated, face damp with tears.

"Your turn," Ric stated.

Damon groaned and stood, swaying just as much as Elena as they headed to the bathroom. She paused at the door, steadying herself against the frame as the room seemed to spin.

"Wish I could pee standing up," she mumbled, steadying herself after a few steps with both hands at the sink.

Damon took her by the shoulders and led her to the toilet, replying, "Please don't try…"

She turned and met his gaze. He was standing so close that her heart hammered in response. She thought back to a time that wasn't so far away that she actually feared this man; the mood swings and unpredictability. Now he was keeping her from cracking her skull on porcelain.

"We shouldn't have let you drink so much," Damon admitted.

When the room started to spin a little she grabbed onto his forearms and breathed, "Whoa…"

He moved quickly to yank her pajama bottoms and cotton panties down to set her on the toilet. He immediately turned to give her a semblance of privacy. Her mind drifted to a million things at once as she leaned back after finishing. Her eyes opened when she heard the flush of the toilet and they didn't open again until she was leaning against his chest as he pulled her pants gently into place.

Without thinking she wrapped her arms tightly around his body. She felt him tense beneath her but then there was the soft warmth of his palms resting on her spine.

"Stop looking so sad," she whispered.

Without stepping out of the embrace, Damon reached behind him to twist the doorknob. With ease he lifted her with his other hand. She wrapped her legs around him and let him carry her to the couch.

"I was about to come check on you two…" Alaric spoke from the other end of the couch. There was an edge to his voice as he scooted over so she could tuck her feet against his side.

"We didn't moderate her underage drinking as we should have," she heard Damon tell him.

"I can tell; she's cuddling my feet."

Xxxx

When Elena woke she was alone but the smell of bacon and something sweet was accompanied with the bangs of someone in the kitchen behind her.

Suddenly a mug of coffee appeared in front of her face and she looked up to see Alaric peering down at her with sleepy eyes and disheveled hair.

"Thanks," she murmured, sitting up to grab the mug and bring it immediately to her lips. She ignored the burn and swallowed a large gulp to help calm the nauseated grumble in her stomach.

"Mornin' sunshine," Damon called from the kitchen.

She tried to hide a smile at her floral apron tied around his waist and the impressive table setting complete with fresh flowers in the center. She peered curiously at the clock behind Damon that glowed bright green.

"Why did you let me sleep so long? Did Jeremy make it home last night?" Elena asked, standing quickly to grab her phone from her discarded purse.

There was a text from Matt letting her know he was crashing there so she breathed a long sigh of relief.

"I told Jeremy to stay there for a bit," Alaric admitted.

Elena felt a flare of irritation at feeling out of the loop but calmed immediately at the thought of Jeremy witnessing her knifing herself; or worse…Damon bending her over the kitchen table. She caught Damon's eye at that as the flush crept up her body. As if he knew where her thoughts were, he immediately dropped his gaze and busied himself with sampling the warm glaze that dripped from the cinnamon rolls.

Xxxxx

It was an especially hot day so Elena decided to skip out on her jog. She had a bit of a hangover anyway and cramps that wouldn't let up. She'd never had sex close to her period before so she wasn't sure what was up with the pain she was in today. Didn't seem plausible that it would have anything to do with it but well…here she was popping pain pills and lying with a heating pad in nothing but a large tee shirt and cheerleading shorts.

She made a to-do list shortly after breakfast, both men eying her warily as she held the sharp pencil between her fingers as if she were two seconds from jabbing herself with it. She just sighed and ignored their presence as she scribbled all the things she needed to take care of. Stuffing another bite of her third cinnamon roll in her mouth reminded her that she needed to go grocery shopping. She may have been eating her feelings this morning…

"Ric, can you grab me my laptop?" Elena asked. She shifted under the heating pad that laid on her abdomen, propping the notepad on her bent knees.

She really wasn't feeling well which wasn't normal for her usual cycle. Her lower back was all achy too. When Alaric handed her the laptop he paused to lay the back of his hand over her forehead. She jumped a little from the contact and peered up at him. "You feeling okay? Think you may have a fever," he said.

Damon looked up from his book at that. Elena shrugged and pulled up a coupon site online.

"Do we need milk?" she asked, ignoring their eyes on her face.

She spent the next thirty minutes making a detailed shopping list within the budget Aunt Jenna had allotted for them when she had been here. She had taught her to balance a checkbook and budget monthly bills. It had all been almost satisfying for Elena to grasp all these concepts at a young age but once Aunt Jenna died it was just depressing.

She tried to do it on her own so that Jeremy could have some semblance of a normal adolescence but sometimes she'd have to involve him with cutting back on this or that to meet their budget. They were fortunate their parents had been so good with money but to make it work Elena had to think about things like coupons and sales; health and car insurance; college and future savings. Sometimes it just wasn't easy to think about.

With her boyfriend on a killing rampage with her Aunt's murderer; her boyfriend's brother fighting a compulsion to have sex with her anytime he thought of a rescue plan; bio-mom's ex trying to make sure that doesn't happen, and not being allowed out of sight because she might slit her wrists at the mere thought of saving her boyfriend…well…she wasn't in the best of moods. She wanted her mother. She needed her. She needed comfort while her hormones were up and down during this wonderful time of the month. She needed a shoulder while she mourned everything she'd lost. She needed her mother's nurturing hand while she laid here feeling like hell.

Yeah, this was definitely a fever. Her whole body ached at this point.

"I think it's time to ditch the heating pad and get some water in you," Alaric sighed, plucking the grocery list from her fingers.

"I need to get out anyway, let me take care of this for you," Damon suggested, standing quickly to grab the list and tuck it into his back pocket. Elena noticed the pointed look Damon gave Alaric. She could only assume he feared being left alone with her.

Before he left he sliced open his hand and squeezed some blood into a glass. He set it down on the coffee table and pointed a finger at her, "hopefully this will still be untouched when I get back."

She nodded slowly, blinking at the burning in her eyes. God she felt terrible.

"I still have your blood in my system though don't I? Won't I still heal?" Elena asked, surprised at the scratchiness to her voice.

"If it's still in your system the only thing it'll do is bring you back as a vampire…and we don't want that now do we?" Damon asked with a cock of his head and raised eyebrows.

Elena shuddered and closed her eyes. No, she definitely did not want that.

Xxxxx

It was jarring how intense her dreams were. Elena didn't know whether to attribute that to Damon's blood in her system or the fever wreaking havoc inside. She woke with a gasp after fuzzy images of her parents left quickly in her awoken state. She was alone in the living room and the sun was setting. Her body was saturated in sweat so she assumed that meant her fever broke in her sleep.

She did feel a little better, though the pain in her throat was at a new level. She probably had strep. Lovely. Why couldn't vampire blood help that?

When she stood she was a little shaky, but at least her vision was clearer and body aches not as present. She startled a little at the site of Damon sitting at the kitchen table nursing a glass of something honey colored.

His lips twitched into a smile before asking her how she was feeling. She shrugged her response and shuffled to the refrigerator to grab a bottled water from the door.

"Where's Ric?" she asked after swallowing several long gulps of cold water. It felt heavenly against the swollen sting deep inside her throat. Ugh, she sounded like an old woman with a lifetime smoking habit.

Damon pointed upwards and she heard the sound of running water. She nodded and opened a few cabinets in search of food. He had followed her list to a 't' and then some. If she had the energy she'd get onto him for breaking the budget but she just didn't.

As if he read her mind he said, "I got some extra things on me. You need to take care of that growing body of yours little lady." There was a lightness to his words but she could tell he meant them.

"Thank you Damon," she murmured, popping open the top of a can of peanuts. Organic too, how nice. She crunched on a handful for a bit before raising her eyes to meet his. She wondered how he kept his mind from Stefan when all she could do was worry about him. It took everything she had not to formulate a way to save him.

"You think he's okay?" she asked tentatively. She knew it was dangerous to bring him up. But there was a sadness inside of her that wouldn't go away. She didn't know how to make it go away.

Damon sighed and looked down at his hands. After a long pause he just shrugged and peered up at her under raven lashes, head still hanging downward. He bit his lip and sucked in a gulp of air before answering dully, "I don't think any of us are okay right now Elena. Especially him." She knew she could count on him to always state the truth. He wasn't one to sugar coat a damn thing.

Suddenly the peanuts seemed unappealing so she set them on the counter loudly, turning her back on Damon. She gripped the counter as a wave of despair hit her. Sometimes it all became too much. Sometimes she was just too strong for too long. She could only hope Damon allowed her the moment to gather herself because if not she didn't know what would come out of her mouth.

She was lucky he was who he was and remained silent, not moving a muscle as her body quivered with unshed tears and silent sobs she held in her belly. After what seemed like forever, but was probably more like thirty seconds, she released her grip on the counter, took a deep breath, and turned around to face him just as Alaric entered the room.

"Hey, hope you don't mind but I tried helping you out a bit with your to-do list. I called your usual doctor to see if they accepted your new insurance but they don't. So I made a list of the ones that do so we can get you in today," Alaric rambled on, opening the fridge to grab a handful of grapes.

She watched him pop one after another into his mouth with her arms crossed tightly around her body.

"Dr. Emerson doesn't accept my insurance?" she asked with a wobble in her voice.

"No, but there are other doctors nearby who do. No biggie," he shrugged.

It _was_ a biggie. She felt like a child but she snapped back, "He has seen me since I was a baby. He used to see my _mother_."

Alaric's hand paused mid-air, mouth slightly open for the next grape. He stood frozen as she uncharacteristically stamped out of the room. Probably her first teenage outburst to date but _hell_ how much was she supposed to take?

She took the stairs two at a time even though it left her dizzy and breathless by the time she locked herself in her bathroom. Her reflection was just…gross. Her hair hung limply around her pale face. Her eyes sat red-rimmed and glassy over dark circles. Maybe a shower would clear her mind and wipe away some layer of grossness that came with fevers and womanhood's curse.

The shower pelted painfully against her skin as if tiny needles poked and burned. This was her life now. It was trying not to think of her boyfriend for the rest of her life. It was trying to keep his brother from thinking of him too. It was staying afloat with just a few people left to call family. It was solving everything on her own. It was monsters hidden in every corner and curses and death. It was fucking scary.

To no surprise Damon was standing outside her bathroom door when she flung it open. He immediately grabbed her wrists and examined them.

"I didn't…" she whispered.

"I smelled blood. It was hard to tell which kind over the scent of soap," he explained, dropping her wrists and taking a few steps back.

Somehow this had become a normal topic of conversation between them. She never would have imagined that their conversations had shifted from trying to find Stefan to her period and suicide. Was this God's way of offering her that "normal teenage life" she'd been praying for?

"Just the gross kind," she said, pushing past his shoulder to grab some clothes from her drawers. It was laundry day so there wasn't much to choose from. She opted for her yoga capri pants and a loose tank top. She almost forgot he was standing there as she nearly dropped her towel to the ground but his voice snapped her back to reality.

"It's not gross."

She knit her eyebrows and turned to face him. She could tell by the expression on his face that he hadn't meant to say it. He pursed his lips and looked away, shaking his head slightly at himself. He may have muttered a sorry but she couldn't be sure.

"Well I need to get dressed so…" she raised an eyebrow at him.

He nodded and left the room, clicking the door shut behind him. She dressed quickly and trudged to the bathroom to try to make her face look more…well… like a healthy face. She knew she needed to move quickly so nobody would assume she was hacking away at a vein with her tweezers, but it was hard when everything was so fuzzy.

She opted for just a heavy layer of concealer under her eyes and a swipe of blush along all the contours of her face. It really did make her look less like a zombie so she cheered up a bit. Her hair would just have to do in its messy waves around her face. Her head hurt too much to pull it back and she just didn't have the energy or patience to straighten it out.

Stefan was the one who loved her sheet-straight hair and Stefan wasn't here so…

The only way she'd ever get him back is if she came up with the perfect plan but not only could she not go there for fear of offing herself, she couldn't ask the one person who could come up with a feasible plan either. She knew if she could just talk to Stefan once and get an idea of what Klaus wanted of him…

She noticed the razor in her hand as her mind immediately swam with this idea of communicating with Stefan. Her mouth dropped open as she watched her body move in quick motions. The blood beaded momentarily at her wrists until they seemed to ooze out of a widening slit.

Damon was in her mouth in a flash, his other hand holding her up by her lower back. "Stop _DOING_ this," he hissed exasperatedly.

Alaric entered the room not too far behind him, out of breath. Elena dropped the razor that she was gripping tightly in her right hand. It clanked in a tinny echo. She stepped away from Damon, looking around the bathroom in shock. It was akin to a horror movie murder scene. She couldn't believe how much blood she'd lost in just that short moment. The severity of the situation hit her gut and she looked slowly at Damon. "I can't be left alone," she whispered.

"No shit," Damon muttered.

Elena sat on the bed as Ric and Damon scoured the house for anything she could harm herself with but she knew it was a wasted effort. Under compulsion she'd find a way; she had to stop thinking of Stefan. She didn't know how she could just stop thinking of the man that she loved when she knew he was suffering. She didn't know how to live like this. So what…Damon was supposed to just be at her side for the rest of her life?

She sat slack and frozen, the effects of much more vampire blood than she was used to causing her chest to stir with rolls of euphoria. It was pleasant but she was too defeated to even blink at this point. She didn't in fact blink until Damon's eyes appeared under her face. He was on his knees gazing up at her.

"Are you listening to me?" His voice broke through the haze of her thoughts.

She blinked several times, noting the gray flecks in his irises. There weren't many but they were hauntingly beautiful next to the almost turquoise slivers of color.

"Elena, we'll leave it to others to bring him back to us. I want him back too. This is _killing_ me. Trust me. Maybe Bonnie…somebody could take over so we don't have to go through this," he explained softly.

She nodded slowly, knowing he was right. She opened her mouth in surprise when he flashed to the other side of the room and started spatting out a string of obscenities. Then he yelled for Alaric.

"Damon…" Elena said warily, standing slowly from the bed.

" _Fuck_ ," he hissed, walking towards her.

She shook her head, her mind searching for what could have set off the compulsion. She guessed planning for someone else to plan for them was still…a plan.

Alaric entered the room, dropping the garbage bag full of knives, scissors, and other pointy objects at his feet.

"Damon…" he said in a warning tone.

" _Stake me_ ," Damon said through gritted teeth.

Elena gasped as Damon gripped her waist. Her heart hammered all the way into her skull as she watched Alaric return to the room with a stake.

"No," she said. But it only came out as a whisper.

The protest was meant for Alaric but Damon must have thought it was for him.

"I can't help it," Damon said through a gasp of air.

She let out a yelp when Damon turned around and lunged for the stake in Ric's hand. She fell back onto the bed but scrambled right back up in an ill attempt to stop Alaric from staking Damon.

"Why are you _helping_ him?!" Damon exclaimed between grunts as he tried to toss the stake out of reach in a compelled action. Elena kicked it out of Alaric's reach.

"You're both going to end up hurt. Just _stop_. Ric please, just go," Elena pleaded.

Alaric stood dumfounded; looking quickly between Damon's tense face and Elena's defeated one.

Elena added quietly, "He won't hurt me."

"Are you sure about that?" Alaric asked.

She could tell it took everything he had to leave the room but he did. She ignored Damon's protests and stalked up to him. He shook his head and muttered, "Stupid, stupid girl."

"I've been called worse," she stated.

His hands ripped her shirt down the middle in one fluid motion. "I don't doubt it," he said gruffly. 

"We need to get him back. This isn't the worst way to do it," she heard herself say. God, did she really just say that…

"We don't have an audience this time. We'll see if you'll be singing the same tune when I'm finished with you," he retorted.

She knew he was trying to scare her but his words did quite the opposite. She should be surprised but the majority of what her mind and heart were being put through in this moment was clear; a part of her was excited…thrilled, even.

Damon muttered several strings of words that never quite reached her ears as he unsnapped her bra and threw it behind her. She heard it smack her mirror and knock over a perfume bottle.

"Damon…I…" she breathed as he blinked rapidly at the sight of her bare chest.

She looked down and had a knee-jerk reaction to cover herself. Damon wasn't supposed to see her like this and that fact hit her very real in this still moment.

"See…you made a big mistake here Elena. This is happening and I won't stop," Damon spoke with such anger.

He pushed her arms away from her chest with ease and lowered his mouth to her collarbone. Her breath hitched. His mouth felt cold against her skin. She noticed she was sweating and still covered in blood from her wrists. She was certainly not at her best for something like this to be happening.

The excitement was replaced with apprehension when he pushed her roughly back onto the bed. She landed with a soft thud, eying his heaving form looming above her. He shook his head over and over as he tore his shirt off over his head and let it drop soundlessly at his feet. His belt buckle sounded deafening in the stillness of the room.

"You look absolutely terrified right now," he told her, still shaking his head slowly back and forth as if doing so would make it all stop.

"I'm not," she croaked.

"You're shaking," he said pointedly as he stepped out of his pants and pushed his boxers down with such ease she wondered why she was the only one so nervous about being seen naked. Probably because he looked like _that_ and had an unimaginable number of lovers in comparison to her two…well now three if she were to count him.

"Scoot up to the headboard," he commanded.

She scrambled back and laid as still as she could while he crept up the bed to hover over her like some damned nude Greek God. He took another look into her eyes, sighing almost dejectedly before yanking her tight yoga pants from her hips. He peeled them down her legs which was difficult with the sheen of sweat that coated her skin.

"Your skin is on fire, you're probably running a dangerously high fever and here we're wasting time in bed," Damon admonished.

She found her voice to ask, "Why won't your blood fix me?"

"It heals, it doesn't cure. Broken bones, skin, veins…gotcha covered." He finally got the pants off and stared up at her for a moment.

"I'm not scared of you Damon," she tried softly.

He tilted his head to the side and let out a breath of air from his nostrils.

"I'm just nervous," she admitted even smaller.

He raised an eyebrow, running his fingers up her thighs to rest at her hipbones. She trembled like she was freezing cold. Head to toe she quaked under his touch.

"You should be" Damon said, pulling her panties slowly down her buttocks.

She bit her lip and had to fight off the urge to conceal herself this time. The cool air hit her dampness, causing her to squeeze her thighs tightly together.

Her voice came out so small and so fragile even to her own ears. She sounded like a damned little girl. "I don't know what I'm doing."

"You're being an idiot and letting me do this to you, that's what you're doing. Ric could have staked me and gotten you out of here," Damon said, nudging her thighs apart with little effort. She slowly bent her knees reflexively as his fingers ran lightly beneath them.

When his fingers reached the neat line of her pubic hair she jerked under his touch, biting her lip hard as his eyes probed hers in a way that left her breathless.

"I mean…I'm not…I've never…," she tried again as he slowly pulled the tampon from her slightly parted lips.

"Elena. Less talking," He said flatly, tossing the barely dotted with blood tampon aside. At least it was a lighter cycle.

This only made Elena more nervous. Why wasn't he being more affectionate. She didn't know how to do _this_. She didn't know how to just fuck without feeling. She didn't know how to convey this to him without making it all worse.

"Okay, yeah. Fine," she muttered, falling back to stare up at the ceiling.

She was just opening her mouth to say something more. To try once again to let him know what it was she was feeling but his mouth was over her dampness and it was like an electric shock rocked her body. Her back arched sharply and hands grasped at the headboard behind her. A breathy sound escaped her lips instead. She hadn't made that kind of sound. Ever.

Her hand flew to clamp over her mouth to keep the rest of it from escaping as his mouth did something she couldn't even pinpoint. It was like he was sucking and lapping at her all at once. She was still shaking but now it was jerky and getting worse the more she tried to contain her reaction.

He put both hands firmly on her abdomen to hold her in place. She caught his eyes peering momentarily up over the planes of her lean body and the feeling that took place deep in her belly caused a whimper to escape. She felt him smile against her but she couldn't even concentrate on his cockiness with the way he was making her feel.

She suddenly felt an uncomfortable cramping in her abdomen so she adjusted a little but even still, it didn't let up. Damon spoke into her inner thigh, his hot breath hitting her skin with each word, "almost done, just bear with me."

She didn't know what he meant, he hadn't even started yet. Then her eyes focused on the blood that was smeared at his fingers and up her thighs. How…thoughtful.

The sucking and pulling was somehow causing her to contract and he was…drinking her. The thought should disgust her. Really it should. But it didn't. It was the affection she had so desperately been seeking in this moment. It was his way of taking care of her.

"Will you be able to get all of it?" she asked softly, wincing a little as another roll of cramps hit her.

"If I do it right," he mumbled into her skin.

"There's a wrong way?" she asked, moaning a little through her last word.

Suddenly he was over her and nudging her thighs even further apart with his knees. She stared up wonderingly at his face. His fangs were out and the veins were pulsing below his haunting eyes. His mouth was crimson and swollen and she couldn't stop staring. He looked striking.

"Not that I'll be able to stop, but let me know if I hurt you," he said, his fangs slowly receding into his flush gums.

Her heart thumped wildly and she bit her lip. The memory of him inside of her before was so distant. She honestly couldn't remember what he felt like that night. She remembered some pain but she was so tense and focused on keeping everyone alive that it was like everything else had faded into the background. Until the moments she hadn't and let go for his sake…and hers.

"Elena…please…" Damon said, his voice breaking a little.

She nodded quickly, whispering, "I'm sorry, I don't mean to…I am just…"

She let out a gasp as he tucked an arm under her lower back and gripped the headboard with his other hand. It felt erotic in a way to be in this position but it also felt detached as if he were putting emotional distance between them. She watched his abdomen muscles flex and slowly roll as he pushed himself deliberately inside of her.

The strangest thoughts seemed to enter her mind. First she noticed how good they looked together down there. Her tanned body and little strip of hair met his taut muscles and tuft of matching raven hair that scratched at her skin as he sank deep inside of her.

He sat so still and she watched his eyes flutter shut, jaw clenching. His whispers somehow made it through her heavy breaths to her ears, "You seriously have a high fever. You feel fucking amazing."

She wasn't expecting that to come out of Damon's mouth and it suddenly made her feel very present. He felt good nestled inside of her but he felt better when she moved slightly upwards, taking him at an angle.

He peered at her with one open eye, his forehead resting on his extended arm that still gripped the headboard. It creaked in protest as he slowly pulled back and then pushed in her. He repeated the motion a few times until he muttered, "Well if we're doing this, may as well do it right."

She didn't know how it could be done more right than this. He pulled her up suddenly and rocked back. She was in his lap letting out another foreign moan as his fingers tangled into her hair and pushed her mouth into his.

She tasted her blood and arousal but she didn't care. Why she didn't care was beyond her at this point. But really. She just didn't care. His tongue did things to the inner side of her upper lip that made her pulse around his length inside of her.

"You set the pace," he murmured into her mouth.

She pulled slowly away from his mouth with the crinkly sound of saliva separating. She immediately shook her head. She just…didn't want to take control with him. It wasn't that she didn't enjoy it…because she did with Matt and Stefan. But Damon was… _Damon_. This was different with him somehow. She wished she wasn't so fuzzy so she could figure out why it was so different.

He brushed the hair that stuck to her damp forehead with his fingertips, eyes narrowing briefly in concern. She leaned into his cool touch, wrapping her arms tightly around Damon's neck. He seemed frozen under her embrace as if unsure what to do next.

"How do you want this to go Elena?" he asked softly.

She bit her lip. She wanted to make love, she didn't want to fuck. She needed somebody to make her feel better and treat her with care.

"Kiss me," were the only words she could find but Damon knew exactly what it meant. He always knew.

He laid her gently down on her back and placed feather light kisses down the bridge of her nose. Her heart was all the way in her stomach and all she could think was that it all felt so fast. She felt cheated in a way. Their friendship had really grown and she'd become rather fond of him lately…and now they were thrown into guilt laced sex. Sex was supposed to be between two people who loved one another. At least, that's the way it was supposed to be for her. She was sure Damon had a very long list of loveless sex partners. But…she didn't. This was different and new for her. She wasn't sure what to make of the way she felt when his lips connected with her skin or the way their sweat soaked bodies slid against one another as if she were the fire and he was the melting ice.

"I like it this way too," he admitted. "Just don't tell anybody," he winked. Her lips curved into a smile but then she was biting her lip hard and tilting her head back as he slid partially inside of her. The first time, in that cold room on the floor, he hadn't wasted a moment pushing into her. He took her quickly and had even looked at her briefly in surprise as he felt her squeeze around him. She had been surprised herself that she could climax under those circumstances…but she had and it had helped him finish. She hadn't moaned or let it be known that she'd let go. But Damon knew.

Now he let her body adjust to him and she appreciated it. He wasn't enormous or much different than the other two men she'd been with, but he was different.

"Hurts?" he asked breathily in her ear where his lips hung.

"A little…but…" her breath hitched as he slid in and pushed slightly upwards hitting something that caused her a little "ah" to escape her throat.

She put her hands tentatively on his back as he began to move inside of her. The pain was gone and she was consumed with just a pulsing softness that left her mouth open in a silent moan. She was glad he couldn't see her face. For some reason she knew it was important to try to keep to herself just how _good_ this was.

The sweat from her body was lubricating his so that the movement of their skin together created something almost erotic. She had no words for this. How could she look at him again after this?

"I can feel that you're close. Let go so I can get you to the doctor…" Damon said hoarsely into her ear between a few breathy grunts that sounded so out of place considering the topic.

She wondered how he knew she was close. She felt silly and young asking, so she just nodded, her damp cheek gliding against his slightly scratchy one. She bit her lip and pressed her pelvis slightly into him so that the friction outside of her matched the insides. It was enough.

Mindlessly, one of her hands eased up to grasp the nape of his neck to press his cheek closer to hers while the other trailed down to dig her nails into his bare buttocks. Her stomach jolted at the familiarity behind touching like this. This sort of thing shouldn't be happening between them. Between friends.

She was well acquainted with her body and familiar with the small orgasms that came with touching herself at night or the bigger ones that came with Stefan rocking gently inside of her as his middle finger ran circles at the base of the line of her pubic hair. This was the first time she was feeling this though. This was something that frightened her because she didn't know what to expect. It started deep inside and stayed there without spiking in intensity…it just bloomed deliciously inside. Then her body started to burn and legs started to quake around him.

She grabbed a fistful of Damon's hair and jerked upwards, causing his eyes to loom over hers. They were dark and glazed, peering at her in a way that was foreign to her. Never had he looked like this before.

The feeling suddenly intensified and it hit her with such deep rolls and dips of pleasure that she pushed his head back down so that she could bury her mouth against his neck. It was impossible to keep it to herself. Gasps and whispery moans escaped in hot breaths against his salty skin. He wasn't too far behind her, not nearly as quiet as she.

Xxxxxx

The waiting room was fairly empty as Elena filled out the new patient form. Damon sat next to her playing some game on his phone and tapping his toe to the cheery elevator-style music that played through crackling speakers on the wall.

It was a women doctor's center that doubled as a wellness and gynecological office so the questions varied between family history to sexual activity and birth control usage. She paused and read the question again and again. _Are you sexually active?_

It'd be a hell of a lot easier if she could answer no. She remembered having to ask her mother for a gynecologist appointment after she and Matt had started having sex. She called Aunt Jenna to ask her if it was normal for it to hurt so much. Now she wished she could call her to ask why it felt so different between guys.

She looked up and noticed Damon peering down at her pen that hovered under the question. He smirked and mumbled, "I'd say…"

She rolled her eyes and wrote a loopy _yes_. The birth control questions made her feel uneasy. No, she didn't use protection but what use was that with vampire lovers. Her heart thumped painfully. She had just referred to Damon as her lover…

Finally she got to the easy stuff. Insurance information, family history. Family history…maybe not so easy.

Her eyes blurred over all the questions surrounding health problems on her mother and father's side. How the hell does this matter anyway. Her parents weren't her biological parents. Her biological parents weren't even as closely related to her as a normal person. She was a doppelganger. Maybe she should ask Damon to text Katherine about their family history…ha.

"Don't suppose you know if Katherine's family suffers from diabetes?" Elena muttered, skipping over the entire section.

"Just psychosis," he shrugged, grabbing the clipboard from her hands to walk it up to the mousy woman behind the sliding glass.

She rubbed her hands up and down her bare arms, wishing she had brought a jacket. It was so cold in here…

Damon plopped down next to her and without a word pulled her into his body with a tight arm around her shoulders. She stiffened for a moment but relaxed when the heat of his body provided a shield against the air conditioning blowing from a vent nearby.

"Thanks," she murmured and he offered a small hum in reply.

She watched him click away on his phone, staring unfocused at his screen as he moved the colorful candy pieces of the game much quicker than was humanly possible. She moved a hand to tuck it under her cheek without thinking. His thumb paused in its quick movements and he seemed to be holding his breath. She realized her palm was over the curve of his chest. Things were becoming different between them whether she meant them to or not. She'd have never sat like this with Tyler or Jeremy. This wasn't right.

"Elena Gilbert?" a woman called from a doorway. Elena immediately stood and walked quickly out of the room without glancing back at Damon.

Xxxxx

Damon was waiting in the car with the windows rolled down and his eyes shut behind sunglasses. Elena slid in and set the papers on the floor as she snapped in her seatbelt.

"I tested positive for strep. Fluids and antibiotics. The prescription should be ready by the time we get to the pharmacy near the square," she told him softly.

They didn't talk again until they reached her home and he walked her to her bed. He simply murmured a, "hope you feel better" and turned to leave her to rest.

She tossed and turned, kicking back the sheets and biting her lip when she noticed the blood all over the sheets from earlier that day. She was grateful Alaric had kept his distance after. She was finding it hard to look him in the eye after having sex with Damon while he sat downstairs completely aware.

She felt lonely and her body yearned for Damon's. It was a strange feeling _needing_ him in ways she never had before. It was a feeling inside and through her body and it was jarring. Maybe it was all of his blood swimming in her belly and veins or maybe it was simply the sex. She didn't know, this sexual activity was foreign to her. Never had she been with someone that she wasn't with first. Someone that she hadn't fallen in love with and gone on….she didn't know...a _date_? Damon was a friend and it had always been complicated between them at best.

She tried saying it out loud, "I want him near me."

It made it painfully real that this forced sexual side to their friendship was changing her.

She put her hands over her face and half laughed, half cried. Tears pooled under her pressed palms. She pushed so hard that she saw colors behind her eyelids. What the hell was she supposed to do with this…

She gasped when cool hands were at her wrists and her hands were pulled from her eyes. She looked up to see Damon peering down at her sadly.

"I wish I could change things. I wish I could bring him home for you," he stated softly, reaching down to thumb the tears away.

"Think of a way," she whispered pleadingly.

He dropped his hand and narrowed his eyes. "Elena…"he shook his head a little.

"We can bring him back if you just think of a way. Please Damon…" her voice broke.

"Stop, you're going to hurt yourself," he mumbled as she noticed she was blindly searching for something on her night stand.

He just watched in motionless silence as she broke a picture frame of her parents and took a shard of glass. She jabbed it into her neck. The blood poured down her chest, soaking the front of her shirt. Her eyes were fearful the longer he sat not doing anything.

"Do you want to be a vampire Elena?" Damon asked softly as she began to feel the dizziness take over.

"No," she gurgled, coughing up blood.

"But you'd rather me take you over and over, knowing how it kills me to have something that feels the way it does but knowing it means nothing. All to bring back the person who won't be able to look past what we've been doing. I know him Elena and he will never look at you the same." Damon bit into his wrist and stuck it into her mouth while simultaneously pulling the glass from her neck.

After her breathing returned to normal she stated, "I don't care if he looks at me differently. I just can't give up on him. He wouldn't give up on me…and he definitely wouldn't give up on you."

He just shook his head and left the room in a flash.

Xxxxx

When Elena woke it was dark outside and her bed was saturated in her broken fever. It was amazing how much better she felt after just a dose of medicine and a long rest. The mirror in the bathroom didn't reflect such a bad image either; her eyes were brighter and cheeks flushed a warm healthy glow.

After a shower and throwing on a tee shirt with her cheer shorts, Elena headed down the stairs. The soft pad of her bare feet hitting each wooden step must have been enough to notify Damon of her presence because when she entered the kitchen, he already had a bowl of something steaming at her spot at the table.

She sat down and breathed in deeply.

"Smells amazing, thank you," Elena told him, stirring the stew-like mixture lightly with a spoon.

She wasn't surprised when he left her to sit by Ric on the couch. She listened to them make their usual noises of the night; clinking glass as they drank and the clicking of PlayStation controllers. Elena was sure Ric had plenty to say about how things went down earlier. Her biggest fear was that he would put his guardian foot down and state that she was better apart from Damon. In a way she couldn't blame him. Damon was older than he by a lot and she was just a high school girl; it looked bad no matter how one tried to justify it all.

Elena tried to waste some time doing the dishes before she finally gave in and entered the living room, crossing in front of the TV for a moment to plop down on the chair that sat next to the couch.

"Feeling better?" Ric asked softly, turning his attention towards her for moment enough to allow Damon to shoot him.

Damon whooped and tossed his controller down as Ric sighed and rolled his eyes, clicking the TV off.

"Yeah, much," she replied, training her eyes on the bottle that sat atop the coffee table. She wondered if Ric would be opposed to her getting smashed tonight.

She reached for the bottle and slowly moved it to her lips, watching Ric for any cues that she was or wasn't allowed. Not that he was too persistent in enforcing any sort of parental rules, but the Gilbert siblings usually made it extremely easy on him and did as they were told.

He just blinked away so she took a long gulp, barely wincing at the burning trail the liquid seared down her throat and into her belly. As soon as that settled warmly, she took another long gulp. Damon stood and she watched him go towards the kitchen. When he returned he placed a glass of water in front of her.

"Strep sucks, stay hydrated," Ric said, as if Damon's nurturing gestures reminded him of what he should say as the parent here.

They all drank in silence, passing the bottle back and forth until they killed it. The room felt warmer and her vision was warmer too. Everything felt safer and more inviting. She wondered why drinking did that to a person.

Ric retrieved his guitar from its resting place against the wall and took to strumming a few chords. She'd heard him hum and play before when he thought she was upstairs studying, but she'd always wondered what he sounded like alone and unafraid of judgment. She imagined pretty good.

"Sing something," she commanded, stretching her bare legs out to rest her feet on the coffee table. Her toes almost reached Damon's crossed boots that he'd clunkily plopped down earlier.

To her surprise, he started the chords to some song and sang in a voice that was as warm and fluid as the liquor swimming in her veins. She watched Damon close his eyes and lean his head back on the couch, a small smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. Elena wasn't sure what it was about a man singing, but it always did something to her. She felt something swell in her chest and trickle into her gut. It was safety and love she thought. Something akin to that.

It was a mournful song but it was felt thickly by Elena. The line kept turning over and over in her mind; _the things we do just to stay alive…_

Elena wished there was more alcohol; there was a lot left to numb.

When the song was replaced with silence , Damon finally stood and stated a soft goodnight. Elena watched with a pang as he left the house, realizing the men must have decided he should start sleeping elsewhere.

"I've got a little of his blood in case you decide to try anything tonight," Ric told her, breaking the thick silence from his spot on the couch.

She stood and stepped over him to sit in the spot Damon had occupied; warmth that smelled of his now familiar scent. With the hollow thud of his guitar against the wall and his heavy foot steps, Elena finally raised her eyes to meet his as he sat a little closer to her on the couch.

"You okay?" he asked, his voice like gravel after the strain of singing.

She could only shrug, blinking away from his fretful gaze. She wanted to ask what they talked about when she was asleep upstairs. She wanted to know why it was better he was gone instead of here by her side. They needed to all stick together. She needed both men right now, they had to know that.

"Hey…" he said softly, running his finger briefly across the bump of her knuckles, "it's all already so complicated without adding in…sex…"

She closed her eyes, willing herself to really hear what he was saying. She knew he was right and this was right. It was just that her body didn't quite know that yet. It was like it had a mind of its own and only felt okay when Damon's body was near.

"Don't do that…" Ric said sadly when the tears started to drip one by one down her flush cheeks.

He pulled her into a rare embrace and she climbed into it. His arms wrapped around her and her knees bent over his lap, her side pushing into the couch and thighs resting against his abdomen. She rested her cheek on his shoulder as she grasped onto him, fingers digging into his ribs.

"I know you don't like to acknowledge this Elena, but you are still just a kid in comparison. Things get messy and unclear, especially to a…young girl, when sex is involved. I don't like talking about this either but…" he trailed off, his thumb moving up and down a space between her hip and bottom rib. He must be as drunk as her to be comfortable with the closeness.

"You're right, I know," she agreed. This felt good and she hoped they could cross this line more. It was that selfish part of her that didn't care about what and why. It was only concerned with what made her feel good for a moment.

It was just another example of why her young and confused self needed his guidance and protection. Here she was folded in her teacher's arms feeling warm and all sorts of things that didn't much make sense.

At some point they laid down, talking drunkenly about the uncertain future that neither were too thrilled about. She fell asleep to the deep lull of his voice and the warmth of his body pressed to her back and arm slung heavily over, fingers trailing over the soft fabric of couch in front of her eyes.

xxxxxx


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I'm so sorry I'm being terrible about responding to you guys, I know I was way better at that with other fics. Really, this fic is just a guilty pleasure to get my mind off of a lot. I'm so grateful for the reviews, means so much to hear back from you guys.**

Xxxxx

If it was awkward Damon didn't make it more so. He behaved as if this were all completely normal and acceptable behavior. Elena woke to the smell of coffee and Ric's heavy breathing flustering the small hairs on the back of her neck. Damon was in and out of the living room, cleaning off the coffee table and laying out coasters for their designated mugs. Hers was always the one with the red hearts and chip on the edge.

She breathed in the scent Damon left behind as he disappeared into the kitchen; earthy like when he rode with his car windows down. Elena took the moment to slide out from Ric's heavy arm and dart to the bathroom. As she peed what seemed like a gallon, she peered at her reflection. Other than her hair being a wavy mess, she looked close to normal. She winced as she tried to swallow, her throat rawer than before.

She heard Ric curse loudly after Damon reminded him of her strep and that they'd shared a bottle last night. Oops.

"Sorry," she said meekly when she entered the living room. This time Damon was in her usual seat and the couch was open next to Ric.

She took her seat and slowly sipped at the coffee, staring unfocused at Ric's bare toes tapping against the rug.

"So, I've got a lot of things to do today. Damon has assured me he will keep both your minds elsewhere and busy while I'm gone," Ric stated.

Elena looked at him in surprise. Just last night he was claiming the less she was around Damon, the better. Now he was leaving them alone together all day. She really couldn't keep up but after sneaking a look at Damon, she felt at ease about it. If he was calm and collected then she could be too.

Once Ric left, Damon pulled her up from the couch by both hands and spun her around, giving her a gentle shove towards the stairs, "put on something comfortable, we've got a long day of teen friendly activities planned."

Elena wrinkled her nose and hoped silently that he wasn't taking her to the mall. Maybe he hadn't noticed, but she wasn't a typical teen. In fact, she preferred online shopping. Plus, didn't he remember she was trying to get over strep, she felt like crap.

After choosing a pair of dark denim shorts and a simple coral colored spaghetti strap shirt, she made her way down the stairs, stopping at the bottom to sit and push her feet into her black Converse.

"Ready?" Damon asked, jiggling his keys on one finger in the air.

When she passed him to exit the house, she caught a whiff of bourbon on his breath. Nauseating but if she could handle it she'd take a few shots too. She wasn't sure why, but her nerves were tingling with a nervousness she couldn't quite tamper.

"Where are we going?" she asked as he cranked the car. It roared to life, shaking and quaking under her body as she snapped in the seatbelt.

"Everywhere. Anywhere but your living room," he replied, shooting her a look that let her know he was as thrilled as she.

He set a pair of sunglasses over his eyes and gave her seatbelt a little tug before speeding off towards town. She fiddled with the radio until something she recognized came on. She recognized the intro plucking guitar of _Rhiannon_ by Fleetwood Mac. Her mother played it on repeat during their summers at the lake house. Elena remembered dancing around the house, dusting all the surfaces and opening windows to let in the cool air coming off the water; honey tea and off key singing. God she missed those moments.

"What are you smiling at?" Damon asked over the beat.

"Memories. Love this song," Elena replied, turning it up and closing her eyes to move a little to the music as wind rustled around her face from the cracked window.

When she opened her eyes again she saw that he was gazing at her with a smile. A real smile complete with teeth and crinkled eyes. Her heart leapt uncontrollably at that.

"A smile!" she exclaimed, tilting her head and grinning right back.

He looked away and his smile fell into a small grin, shaking his head in two tight shakes. For a moment she felt good. For a moment this all felt right and perfect like things used to feel when she was a typical teen dancing with her mom in the kitchen. Maybe he felt it too because the grin never quite left his lips as the road crawled underneath and the familiar Mystic Falls square came into sight.

Damon backed into a spot across the street from the only café in town. It was early enough that it wasn't packed and there were plenty of outdoor tables left empty.

"I still can't parallel park," she admitted as she exited the car and surveyed the perfect parking job Damon had executed.

He tore his sunglasses off his face and tossed them into his seat before shutting the door with a loud clank of heavy metal.

"How did you pass your driver's test then?" Damon asked, nodding for her to follow him across the street towards the café.

When she caught up and entered the café under his arm that propped the door open, she replied, "The guy was a friend of my dad's and he took pity on me. I mean, I got the car into the spot…just not straight. I may have taken out a cone in the process."

Damon was still slightly shaking his head at her when he ordered her a coffee and pastry as she stood behind him, still feeling a nervousness that she didn't usually feel around him. Usually it was annoyance or disdain. Then it transformed to respect and a feeling of close friendship. Now it was confusing and being near him was difficult. He wasn't hers to touch, yet he'd been inside of her and she'd grasped the very shoulders that she stood so close to now.

She was just leaning in to breathe him in when he turned around with her coffee and she took a few stumbling steps back. He looked at her curiously before asking slowly, "Do you want to sit outside?"

She nodded and looked at her feet, turning quickly to pick a table that the sun was hitting just right so that the umbrella cast a shadow across their seats. It was a beautiful day. The air was cool and sweet enough to perk her right up. Her eyes fluttered shut as she took a sip of the delicious coffee, letting out a satisfied sigh.

The waitress turned up with her pastry a moment later. It smelled amazing. Elena wondered how Damon could turn down a bite which left her wondering just how often he needed blood to stay full. She knew Stefan had to feed more often because animal blood wasn't nearly as nourishing as human blood. He was easily fatigued and relied on a large supply he kept stashed away. But now, he was probably stronger than Damon with all the ripping he was doing at Klaus's side.

As if Damon knew her thoughts had turned to Stefan, she snapped her attention back towards him when he started talking. He wasn't usually a talker. He never needed to fill in the silences with idle chat or meaningless conversation. Stefan was a little different, always interested in her day and her life. He'd even dedicated a date to asking her questions with that warm voice and sincere smile that always stirred something deep inside. She'd happily rattled off facts about herself, giddy with new love. Damon had always been darker. She used to think his sarcasm and dry sense of humor was rude and brash, but now she saw that it was all just a mask. Getting closer to him and seeing the pain in his eyes and the deep care he had for his brother had shown her an entirely different side to him. Sure, he still tossed out jokes and acted like he didn't give a crap about anybody outside his small circle, but underneath he was a loyal soul. He may complain about it but he'd lay down and die for any one of them, she knew that. She knew a lot more than she let on.

Elena listened to Damon fill the silence with a story from his past. She wasn't sure why he brought up this memory out of all the thousands he could touch on, but it left her laughing and wishing she'd have known him long ago. It was hard imagining him as just a guy like Matt, Tyler or her brother. Just a guy with dreams and mistakes; embarrassments and achievements. Now he was a man who looked like he was in his twenties but had a soul older than the old man walking with a cane past them now.

She wondered how many years passed before he gave up on dreams. She wondered what it was like to live so long, knowing time would never catch up. It was alluring in a way, living forever. But to be sad for decades because you didn't have a time limit to force you to find happiness…

She felt for him then. He carried a lot of weight, more than she'd ever understand, more than he'd ever share. Her eyes roved his face, taking in the image of each feature, his stature. It was like he was made to be beautifully broken; built to falter. He was a product of Kintsugi; the ancient art of taking something broken and filling in the cracks with gold to make it beautiful in its imperfections. He didn't try to hide his cracks, never tried to deny them. It's what made her heart ache when she looked at him.

"Sometimes I'm tempted to compel you to tell me everything running through your mind," Damon admitted, tapping his thumb absently atop the table.

She blinked and realized she'd been staring too long, her brows furrowed in thought and lower lip growing swollen with all the gnawing under her blunt teeth.

"Just thinking about you," she admitted, looking down at her coffee cup. Her hair fell from its tucked refuge behind her ears, cascading in long sheets around her face.

She smiled when he reached with both hands to tug the ends of her hair, asking lightly, "What are you doing, writing a novel in there?"

She flicked her eyes up to meet his without raising her chin, her reply slipping away when their gazes locked. She only looked back down when he blinked, dark raven lashes distracting her from the intense ice blue. His fingers fell from the tips of her hair and laid flat in front of her, the chestnut strands brushing feather light against his knuckles as the morning breeze rustled around them. Without thought she raised a hand from her lap to run a finger over his daylight ring. It was cold to the touch and just as bulky as Stefan's.

"I wonder what Ric's doing today," she murmured, dropping her hand and lifting her eyes to meet his again.

Damon slid his hands off the table and stretched them above his head, yawning loudly. Her eyes drifted down the length of him, a vague memory of the way his muscles moved under his bare skin as he delved inside of her. She had to stop this. She didn't know how.

He replied as he stood, fishing his keys out of his jeans pocket, "drinking, reading, grading papers and fiddling with his di-" he broke off at that.

Elena closed her eyes and shook her head at the unwanted image and stood to follow Damon to the car.

"Yeah but he could have done all that with me at the house. Think he's up to something?" she asked as she settled into the passenger seat.

Damon placed his sunglasses low on his nose, peering at her with a seriousness, "I'm trying hard not to think about what he could potentially be up to," he tore the glasses back off and slid them gently onto her face, "you should too."

She felt her hopes spike at what Damon was alluding to. Maybe Ric was fighting for them to get Stefan back. Maybe he'd been plotting and planning all along so that they wouldn't have to.

"Ummm," she blurted out nervously, trying hard to keep her mind from plunging into what he could possibly be planning. She really wasn't in the mood for suicide attempts and swallowing Damon's coppery blood.

"Puppies and kittens! Puppies and kittens!" he exclaimed. She'd laugh if she weren't in such a frenzy.

The thoughts were still there, her brain becoming a cruel traitor. She cursed a few times under her breath, looking around the car frantically for something to distract her.

Then his hands were on her cheeks and his lips thrust against hers. She stopped breathing for a moment, her lips parting out of pure instinct. His lips followed suit and fell into the spaces between. She felt it in her belly first, her mind completely blank and her senses on overload. All thoughts of Ric's plans to save Stefan were replaced with the feeling of Damon's cool lips warming against her flaming hot mouth. It was a slow and simple kiss that tasted like coffee and bourbon. It was her that darted out her tongue to first graze his lower lip and then push against his.

Her lungs hurt so she exhaled through her nose as he sucked her lower lip in to bite softly. She let out a moan which caused her eyes to pop open. She guessed this was what happened when she shut off her brain and let her body take over.

He pulled away then as if it were easy, starting the car and turning up the radio. It did the trick because her mind was completely involved with all things Damon, Stefan's rescue a dim light fizzling out in the back of her mind.

Xxxxx

When they pulled into the movie theater parking lot, Elena couldn't help but feel that nervousness creep back in. Her lips still throbbed from his mouth and she mentally admonished herself for the dampness that had collected between her legs. She wondered if he could sense what he did to her.

"There's plenty of movies playing around right now, you can pick," Damon stated softly.

"K," she replied just as softly, following him to the ticket booth.

She stayed away from the romances and picked something plot heavy with explosions and spies. She turned down popcorn but let him buy her a blue slushy and just smiled around her straw as he droned on about food coloring and sugar. He was always lecturing Ric and her both about what they put into their bodies as if somewhere along the way he'd become a health nut even though he could live forever and off of blood alone.

When they took their seats behind a couple snuggled close together, Damon leaned to whisper in her ear, "I'm hungry, I'll be right back."

Through her shudder of the light tickling breath he left against her skin, she whispered back, "What? Where? Who?"

He just smirked and rolled his eyes, waving her off. Mouthing _don't worry_. She sank low in her seat as he disappeared out of the theater, her mind running through thoughts of him snatching some innocent theater worker. She'd never seen him feed, or Stefan. But she'd seen vampires attack.

The couple in front of her started making out so she took to sucking down her drink and tapping her foot nervously against the concrete flooring. The lights dimmed and the screen lit up with a few crackles and pops before previews started playing. She became involved in one particular preview for a movie about a vampire hunter and a world run by some clan of brutal vampires that turned the human race into slaves and food. Hm, sounded plausible if Klaus set his sights broader.

Damon slid next to her, snatching the slushy from her hand to take a quick suck from the straw before setting it in the cup holder on the other side of her. He pushed the plastic arm that separated them up. She wasn't sure why, because he didn't move any closer or throw an arm around her. The thought hit her suddenly that this all felt like some jacked up first date. Of course their first date would be forced, complete with a kiss to keep her mind off of saving her boyfriend. Nothing had ever happened normally between the two of them. It was their mantra.

The movie ended up being full of sex and had a heavy romantic undercurrent to the spy story. Of course.

Halfway through Elena became chilly but didn't want to admit it because he'd probably pull her close and she really needed to regroup and reflect before putting her body close to his again. She thrust her cold hands between her pressed thighs and tried to move around slightly to shake the shivers as the AC kicked on inappropriately high.

"Stop being such a girl," Damon murmured in her ear suddenly, snaking an arm around her waist to pull her flush to his side. With his free hand he pried her hands from between her thighs, holding them both under his on his lap.

"Stop being such a guy," she retorted which earned her a small chuckle. She shivered against the way his abdomen felt as it shook with laughter and the scent of him under his arm; rich and sweet.

She spent the rest of the movie fighting off the urge to fall asleep against him. The warmth of his body and hour of the day was enough to make her drowsy. The ache in her throat was acting up again, causing her to swallow repeatedly against it.

When the movie let out Elena let out an audible sigh as they stepped into the warmth of afternoon sun. The car ride was pleasant; oldie music seeping into the wind tossed air and a warmth that wouldn't leave Elena's calm belly. The nervousness had seemed to slip away for the moment.

"What would you like for lunch?" Damon asked as they slowed to a stop near the square.

"Soup maybe. My throat is killing me," she admitted hoarsely.

"Ah, sorry baby girl. Soup it is," he said lightly, the term of endearment rolling right off his tongue. She knew he was just being playful with her but she couldn't help but swell under it anyway. He really could be an impossibly sweet and adorable guy. Usually he wasted that charm on cockiness and the fact that he knew he looked the way he looked. She supposed after decades of women telling him so, it had gone to his head. Though, it was the cracks and broken pieces, held together beautifully, that she found so compelling. Those telling moments when he faltered or flew, thinking nobody was paying attention.

They returned to the same café, sat at the same table. The air was much warmer now with the sun settling straight over their heads, but the breeze remained cool and crisp across her skin. The soup was warm and felt searing, but perfect. Kind of like Damon.

Elena about dropped her spoon at that thought. What the hell was wrong with her?

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I…," she sighed and ran her hand through her hair, looking out towards the road. It was busier now, cars and people bustling by.

She continued even though she didn't completely want to hear the answer, "I've been wondering if your blood has…side effects." She glanced at him then, peering deeply into his pensive stare.

His chin was resting against the palm of his hand and she watched his fingers drum lightly against the side of his face. He watched her for too long and it made her feel exposed; made her question things.

After dropping his hand, he looked away and replied, "You mean like an attraction? A feeling of deep connection and need?"

She almost felt relief that maybe she wasn't a horribly weak person. Maybe it wasn't her fault that she was slowly falling for her boyfriend's brother.

"Yes…a lot like that," she admitted softly, her belly jerking a little when his eyes drifted back to hers.

He stared hard and long, his face unreadable. Suddenly that nervousness started to ease back in like a poison to her veins.

"No," he said flatly.

Her eyebrows pushed together slowly, "No…what?"

He reached over to take a bite of her soup, leaving the spoon to dangle from his mouth as he replied, "No, vampire blood is not akin to love potion."

She felt a flush creep to her cheeks but luckily she'd been flush from the strep all day so it was probably unnoticeable. Elena felt a flick of irritation. He had set her up for that one. She walked right into it.

Luckily the waitress came by with a pitcher of water and refilled Elena's glass.

"Thank you," Elena muttered softly, trying to gulp down the water without killing her throat in the process.

"Hurts?" Damon asked touching his own throat to show her what he meant.

She nodded, keeping her eyes on anything but him.

"I had a few more activities planned but I can take you home if you'd like," he stated gently.

She nodded again, standing wordlessly. She tugged her shorts down and followed him to the car; at some point during the short car ride to the Gilbert home, she fell asleep.

Xxxxx

Elena jerked awake at the feeling of being touched. It took her a moment but the familiar blue eyes brought her back to a calming reality.

"Sorry," he murmured, letting his hand fall from under her chin and offered it to help her out of the car.

She took it and let him pull her up.

The house was still and quiet, Ric out doing whatever it was that he was doing. Elena collapsed straight onto the couch, belly down, arms tucked under her head. Damon plucked her legs up by the ankles and sat down, letting them drop onto his lap. Her eyes closed as she felt him wiggle her shoes off and toss them behind the couch with loud thuds. Then it was his fingertips, so light, running up and down the arch of her feet. She twitched under the sensation and mumbled with a tiny smile, "Stop it. Tickles."

"Don't let it," he shot back, never stilling his fingers.

"I can't," she said sleepily, wiggling her toes against the tickle.

"You can."

He was right, when she stopped thinking about it and it was just his fingers tracing little lines down her bare feet, it was incredibly lulling.

Elena didn't wake back up until his hands had fallen heavily against her; one on her feet, one on her left calf. Sneaking a look over her shoulder, she smiled at his sleeping face. He looked younger when he slept; innocent like a little boy.

She dropped her head back down, closing her eyes just as Ric entered the front door. She pretended to be asleep because she wasn't quite ready to switch gears and play the 'let's not think about Stefan and pretend everything is normal and drink ourselves into oblivion again tonight' game. She heard him walk to the living room in that heavy footed way he always did, even when he was trying to be quiet.

"Damon," he whispered.

She felt his hands jerk against her and then lift off, leaving her skin cool where his warmth once was.

Ric whispered again, "Everything go okay today?"

"Yeah, it was fine," Damon replied, a sleepiness to his words.

"So no…slip ups?" Ric pressed.

"She didn't try to off herself and I kept it zipped up if that's what you're asking," Damon replied, shifting ever so slightly under her feet before slowly standing up and easing her feet onto the couch.

"Good. Stay for dinner, need help peeling potatoes," Ric stated. The sound of a bottle unscrewing signaled the drinking had already begun.

"Yeah, sure," Damon sighed.

They left the room and this time Elena fell into a deep sleep in the silence that followed their departure.

Xxxxx

Elena followed their voices, sleepily rubbing her eyes and about running into the door frame as she exited onto the back deck. It was too humid tonight, rain was coming. They looked up from their seats, growing slightly somber at her approach.

She wordlessly stepped in the spaces between their legs that splayed out adjacent from one another, reaching down to grab Ric's drink from his hand. She swirled it around, peering at her morphed reflection a few seconds before letting the liquid slide down her throat. It burned like it always did, more so with her raw skin.

"It's hot out here," she murmured, dropping the empty glass back into Ric's poised hand.

She turned to pluck the bottle from Damon's hand, her fingers brushing over his. He was always so cold, no matter the heat that sweltered around them. She loved the way he seemed to heat up against her and melt into her lips and body. These thoughts slammed her out of nowhere. Her filter was gone, her walls knocked down. It was easier than thinking of Stefan…fighting for Stefan. To do that meant to think of how to get him back and that just led to suicide.

She filled Ric's glass back up and took a swig from the bottle.

"Thirsty?" Damon asked softly.

Elena thrust the bottle almost roughly into Damon's waiting hand, this time her nails catching the marble skin of his fingers. He didn't flinch.

"Got any better ideas?" Her tone was clipped. Maybe it was the heat. Really, she was just frustrated with the entire situation. She felt helpless.

"No," he replied in a way that made her feel guilty. He sounded gentle and worried. How she could read that all from one word, she wasn't sure. But she could.

"Sit," Ric suggested just as gently.

So she sat in the space he left her on the wooden lawn chair, her side pressed against him. It wasn't long before the humidity caused them to perspire against one another but it felt good when the breeze finally hit.

Her eyes closed as the light wind whipped tendrils of her hair around her face, most of it sticking to her damp neck. She opened them when she felt the air shift and Damon's feet plod away and into the house. She watched him through the soft glow of the kitchen window, all set jawed and sullen. He returned with a glass of ice, already crunching a piece between his teeth.

She watched a little dribble out and over his full lower lip and she found herself darting out her tongue as if it were on her own. When he stooped over them, he fished a cube out and held it between thumb and forefinger.

Her eyes trailed up to meet his and out of reflex she opened her mouth, letting him drop it on the tip of her tongue. He blinked away and clanked around in the glass for another, dropping it in Ric's mouth. Then, he nestled the glass between their pressed thighs and laid back almost languorously in his seat, folding his hands behind his head to peer at them.

"Thanks buuu-ddy," Ric said slowly; questioningly.

"Dinner's almost ready," Damon stated.

"What are we having?" Elena asked, rolling the ice around in her mouth. It melted quickly, leaving her craving more.

This time she ran one over her skin, trailing slowly over her collar bone and hollow of her throat. It melted in drizzling drips; tear drop-like stains collecting at her chest. She hadn't meant it in any other way than to cool the heat that seemed to radiate at off her skin, but when her eyes flicked up to meet Damon's….

She'd caught Damon peering at her before in ways that let her know a thing or two in the past. She was never sure if it was Katherine he thought of when fondness would cross his face. She never looked too far into it because that would mean stepping over the lines that clearly needed to be there when Stefan was at her side. She'd seen the way he started to look at her when Stefan left them; the way his eyes held hers for moments too long. Or maybe he'd been looking at her like that all along and she'd chosen to look away at all the wrong moments.

Something was changed whether she liked it or not. If Stefan were to walk up those stairs this moment, he wouldn't be able to tear her gaze from the way his older brother looked at her right now.

"Okay. Enough. Let's go eat," Ric said. He stood quickly, leaving her side cold and moist with their combined sweat. When he offered her a hand, she felt it grasped too tightly but didn't tug away as they trailed after Damon towards the kitchen.

They drank wine with their food. Damon barely ate. She wondered if he was still full from whoever he fed from earlier. Probably. What did she know.

She tried to help with the dishes but Damon chuckled softly under his breath when she swayed a little under the thick alcohol buzz.

"You'll break them all, go sit. I've got this," he told her in that voice that reminded her he was human once.

So she sat with Ric on the couch, listening to him shuffle a deck of cards. He was humming something unfamiliar and low, dusty blond hair falling in his eyes as he leaned on his knees to shuffle over the coffee table.

"You want to play something?" Elena asked, poking a bare toe into his side.

"You think you can play? You're slurring all your words," he smiled, sounding all fatherly.

"Think I should switch to water?" she asked earnestly. She didn't like to worry him. He looked worried. When Damon entered the room she realized he wasn't worried about the drinking.

"Maybe you should, maybe we all should," he shrugged.

Damon snickered and yanked the cards out of his hand, "we all know that won't happen."

Elena watched him expertly shuffle the cards at an almost inhuman pace. His fingers were so long and delicate. Like how they trailed down her thigh the second time they made love. _Made love?_ Was that what they did? It was all so confusing.

If he weren't compelled and she were willing, would it be different? Would it feel different?

She excused herself to the restroom. She had to pee.

God they talked loud, did they realize she could hear them perfectly well from the hall bathroom? Maybe they thought she was too drunk to listen or comprehend.

"Then why am I here Ric?" Damon asked.

"Because as wrong as it all is, you two pining over one another is keeping your minds off of something far more dangerous. It's been easy really Damon. You two in a room and I can literally jab through the sexual tension with a goddamn stake," Ric replied.

Made sense really. She hadn't thought much about Stefan other than how bad and wrong it was that she was thinking more about Damon in his absence.

She decided to go to bed. She didn't want to hear them argue and she didn't want to feel the guilt all trickle back in. It was too much right now.

"Nicely done. Truly. Now I hope since you've got us all figured out you've been of actual use. _Somebody_ needs to bring my brother back home. If she can't and I can't then it's going to have to be you," Damon said.

She could tell he was drunk too. Elena hovered near the stairs, watching them get tense and involved. She had to grip the banister to steady herself.

"You think I haven't been working on that for you? For her?" Ric asked hoarsely and gritty.

"Change the subject," Damon said flatly, tossing the cards onto the table. They slid and scattered to the floor.

"Maybe you should head home now," Ric sighed.

"Yeah," Damon agreed, his eyes finally drifting to hers. He looked defeated. She hated that.

Something inside her clicked. It was as if the last domino fell as she peered into his eyes through the dimly lit Gilbert living room.

She whispered quiet enough that it would reach only his ears, "Don't leave."

His brows moved slowly downwards, eyes squinting slightly as his head tilted to the side. Elena made her way up the stairs, forcing herself to look away. She closed her bedroom door and flicked off the lights, shedding her shorts and bra before moving to her vanity to drag a brush through her hair.

She turned around and he was leaning against her dresser across the room. He didn't make a move, just stood there looking thoughtful; curious even.

"Ric can't do it on his own. One of us has to help him," she said slowly.

"Elena…" Damon warned.

"It can't be me because of this," she said shakily as she uncontrollably reached blindly for the glass cup she had left on her vanity the night before.

It broke easily as she smashed it against the wood. Her blood trickled hot and thick down her neck. That's when he finally moved.

"Goddamn you," Damon hissed near her ear as he tried to put pressure to her wound with his hand, biting into the other and thrusting it into her mouth.

She swallowed him and felt the pain subside almost immediately. When he stepped back, unsteadily and with a heaviness, she saw that he understood.

There was a knock at the door and he slipped into the bathroom as Ric talked to her through the thin wood.

"I'm fine, goodnight," she assured him.

Elena walked to her stereo and turned it on, hoping to mask whatever would come next. She locked the door and pulled her shirt over her head, turning slowly to face the eldest Salvatore. In nothing but her white lacy underwear, she bit her lip and exhaled slowly, willing herself to really look into his eyes.

As the music played almost sensually in the background as if she'd planned it that way, his eyes shut and he clenched his jaw.

"Do what you need to do," she whispered, "please, this can't go on forever."

When his eyelids finally drifted up, raven lashes drawing up like curtains, she felt her belly jolt at the way he stared back. He took two steps, then three. His breath was warm and laced with honey sweet alcohol across her face. She felt it cold when he tilted his head and slowly, so slowly, moving his mouth to her bloodied neck. First it was just his lips, grazing feather light and parted against her racing pulse. Then it was the very tip of his tongue; little circles and then long and flat against her skin.

Her breathing became deep at the sensation of his cool mouth on her skin, so close to that dangerously pounding pulse. She wondered what it felt like to be bitten there. Not brutally like Klaus had latched on, but seductively tender like Damon was in all things.

She realized when his hand barely brushed into hers that their bodies weren't even touching. It was just his mouth at her neck and this static crackling between their hovering skin. She could feel him like she'd always felt him; close, always close.

He took a nudging step forward, her back hitting the wall, his knee pressing into her leg. When he pulled away she felt his lips trail across her jawbone and leave a single and small kiss. The crackle of moist skin echoed in her ear even after he backed away to pull his shirt off and toss it somewhere behind him.

Aside from the music, there was her breathing that filled the room. Her chest rose and fell with each shuddering breath and she found it hard to look him in the eye. But he grasped her by the chin and forced her to. His eyes flicked back and forth, something deep behind the way he peered into her. His eyes were so dark, pupils dilated and pushing the ice blue into thin rings. Then his lips were on hers and she gasped into his mouth at the sensations it sent straight to her gut.

Her gasp turned into a sharp but soft cry when he pinned her tighter against the wall with the press of his pelvis to hers. Then, with no effort, he picked her up, her thighs wrapping tightly around him. She stared down into his eyes as his lips rested at her chin and he carried her to the bed. Her hair fell around their faces like a curtain, shutting everything else out.

Then she was on her back, arms splayed above her head, chest heaving as he pushed his clothes off with pointed fluidity. She noticed his lips were crimson like after a feed and a sudden piercing desire slammed through her body.

Elena felt like she was on fire from the inside out. She didn't know if it was the alcohol or this buried lust she didn't even know she had caged up…but she felt like she could cry or laugh or scream or all of the above. He didn't look angry or guilty as he watched her with that pensive stare. Not this time.

She felt the bed dip all around her as he hovered over her body. Her eyes trailed up the taut muscles of his arms, watching them tense and roll as he lowered himself to his elbows. Their noses brushed for a moment before his lips found hers once again. This time it was her that deepened the kiss. It was her that captured his lip and tangled her tongue with his. It was her that traced the angles of his face with shaky fingertips. She couldn't tamper it down, not this.

His lips slid moistly down her chin and he made his way towards her breasts, dropping slick kisses here and there before taking a nipple into his mouth. Her head rolled to the side but her eyes cast down and she saw that he kept his eyes on hers. This was different than before. He was really engaging and it made all the difference. To look and be looked at; it was felt deep inside.

"Is this real?" she heard herself ask aloud in a whispery hoarse voice. It was Damon Salvatore. It was the big brother to her boyfriend. It was the man who snapped her own brother's neck and placed a necklace so gently around her own.

"Close your eyes," he murmured. So she did. His lips moved to her navel and she quaked under him.

Then his fingers were slipping inside her panties, moving them down and down until she wriggled out of them.

"Do you feel it?" he asked as he placed a kiss on her forehead, the bed adjusting against his weight.

"Yes," she replied immediately, her hands grasping his back, nails digging in. She didn't even have to think. She knew what he meant. She felt what was always between them; quelled up and locked away with guilt. Forbidden and wrong, yet when finally released, it was everything.

"It's real," he said simply, just as he thrust gently inside her.

She let out a gasp and then a hoarse cry.

"Shhhh," he shushed her, filling her with a roll of his hips.

Xxxxx

A sharp sliver of light was peeking through her parted curtains, casting a harsh light directly onto her eyes. So she rolled over, her nose bumping into something soft.

Her eyes shot open and everything came rushing back to her. She rolled onto her back, her hands flying to cup over her mouth. _Oh my god_.

She slowly snuck a peek at Damon, who was of course awake and witnessed her entire mini breakdown. He moved the hand that was under his cheek to pull her fingers from over her mouth, holding them on her chest. Her heart pounded wildly under their palms.

"I'm going to be busy today. Away. I'll leave some blood. You stick close to Ric and keep your phones nearby," he said, his voice slow and tired.

"Okay," she whispered, her fingers twitching under his.

She watched him slide out of bed to retrieve his clothes, averting her eyes as best she could. Morning afters were usually her favorite. She loved waking to gaze at Stefan's profile, the way his lips settled into the slightest of smiles. She loved running her fingers up and down his abdomen, shivering as he nibbled her ear, reminding her what they did the night before. She'd never had a morning after with Damon. This felt…different.

The bed dipped when he sat on her side, his lower back pressing warmly into her hip, as he tugged on his shoes. She fought the sudden urge to run her nails lightly down his spine. Instead, she pushed herself up, bringing the sheet up with her to cover her bare chest. He turned his head to look at her, his eyes a darker blue than usual. She felt herself leaning closer to peer at them, blinking rapidly when he started to speak.

"Don't overthink it to death today. K?"

She nodded slowly, knowing her face betrayed her. Of course she would overthink it. She _offered_ herself to Damon last night. She offered and he took it. All in the name of Stefan.

"Be careful," Elena called to him as he exited her room.

He hovered in the doorway for a moment, gripping the door frame before tossing her a short nod.

Xxxx

Ric didn't make the day easy on her. He was a bundle of nerves after he silently watched Damon slice into his skin with a steak knife and fill a glass that now sat next to the orange juice in the fridge. Elena had walked in with her loose pajama bottoms and a fresh plain gray tank.

She averted her eyes when Ric stared her down as Damon subtly squeezed the back of her neck in a gentle and wordless goodbye.

"Keep her busy," was the only thing he said to Ric as he'd left.

They didn't talk much while she helped him wash the cars in the morning sun. It felt good to be outside, doing something active. Her pajama bottoms ended up soaked so she just tugged on her shorts from yesterday and examined her pruned fingers as Ric made them sandwiches for lunch.

"Apple?" he asked.

"Sure. Thank you."

They ate outside on the back deck, a few glasses from last night still set on the table. Elena ate her sandwich much quicker than Ric, realizing her appetite was really swinging back. She noticed he winced as he swallowed a bite.

"Uh oh…" she murmured.

"Yeah. I thought I got lucky but guess not," he sighed.

"Sorry," she added, offering him a sympathetic pout.

He just shrugged and took their plates inside, leaving her in the stillness of the midday warmth. Cars whirred in the distance as dogs barked and voices carried from the neighborhood. Her cheek rested on her shoulder as she resisted the urge to trudge upstairs for a nap. Her skin smelled of him and it caused her chest to clench.

Her eyes popped open at the sound of a glass clunking onto the table next to her. Damon's blood settled in the cool glass; thick and stark red.

"Just in case," Ric said, sitting down to face her solemnly, "we need to talk."

Elena slumped in her chair, sinking down so that her feet were stretched under his chair.

"I'm worried about you," he finally said.

She looked at her teacher and guardian. Though, now she was eighteen and didn't need a guardian really. The thought of being on her own sort of scared her honestly.

"I know. I'm sorry. I…I don't know what to do or how to feel anymore," she admitted, fiddling with the strap of her shirt.

When she finally lifted her eyes to meet his, she saw he was resting his elbows on his knees and really watching her. He did look worried. But talking about it wasn't going to change the fact that Damon was compelled to sleep with her whenever he did the one thing he needed to do; bring home Stefan. It wouldn't change the fact that she was developing feelings that were foreign to her for the forever twenty something vampire. She didn't know what to do with that.

"It's going to hurt," he added gently.

"I know that," she murmured. She hadn't let herself fully think about the extent of it all but the image of Stefan returning and the pain they'd all be in was enough to make her eyes water.

"I don't want you to blame yourself. You're young, way too young for all this. What I'm saying is, they've been down this road before. They are going to be okay," he continued.

She flinched at that. He was right. They were brothers and she was well aware of what Katherine had done between them. She knew what Ric was trying to say. In the end they were still brothers but she would just be the girlfriend that faltered and fell for both. It was a place she swore she'd never be. But what Ric didn't understand was that it wasn't because she was some little girl. He had no idea how it felt to be looked at or touched by Damon Salvatore. He didn't know about the small flame that had been inside her well before any of this that flickered when the eldest brother was near.

She loved Stefan still. It was just painful to know that she was capable of feeling things for his brother too. It left her feeling ashamed and confused.

"I didn't mean to make you upset," he said softly, grazing her knee with the light touch of fingertips.

The hot tears trickled down her face, she didn't bother swiping them away. Her face was slack and unmoving. Rarely had she cried tears so freely, they seemed to fall on their own accord because she was motionless.

What he said next surprised her. Maybe he did understand in a way. Maybe he didn't think she was just some mindless hormonal teenager that fell for any guy she slept with. She knew that was a little harsh though, she knew better than to put such little faith in his view of her.

"Damon is…I know how he is. I also know he cares very much for you. I trust him with you. I just want you to think about this for a minute. I need you to see it for what it is even if it hurts."

She couldn't imagine an outlook that she hadn't already rolled around in her mind. It all hurt no matter how she looked at it. But she listened anyway.

He blinked a few times, sucking in a slight breath before stating, "Damon knows Stefan isn't lost for good. He will come back eventually. Could be decades from now. Could be long after you and I are gone. But he will come back. Damon is trying to get him back now. Not for himself, not for you. He's doing it for Stefan."

Her throat tightened but she swallowed against it, saying hoarsely, "I know that. He's said that."

Ric pursed his lips and nodded slowly, "Damon will do anything for those that he loves. He loves Stefan more. He has to, to be able to do this. Do you see what I'm saying?"

She felt her eyes narrow. Of course Damon loved Stefan, she knew that. But what did loving him more have to do with anything. Her gut twisted up when she rolled it around in her head. She imagined Stefan coming home because Damon fought to bring him here so he could live a life with Elena. Not so that he could have his brother back sooner. He would put Stefan's feelings before his own…and _hers._ She bit her lip. She knew what Ric was trying to say now. She knew exactly what Damon was planning.

It hurt.

xxxxx


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Thank you for all the reviews. I enjoy reading them and appreciate the feedback as always! Sorry it took so long and that I'm not responding to each review like I tried to do with Bloom. I failed to edit this one, sorry if there are a ton of mistakes.**

Xxxx

It was late afternoon when Damon returned. Elena and Ric were cleaning up the living room when he rushed through the front door.

Elena looked at Ric in alarm when Damon grabbed her by the wrist and started moving her towards the front door, talking over his shoulder, "I'll call you in a few."

When they reached his car he didn't wait for her to buckle up as he backed out of her driveway and sped down the road. He made it to a back road close to town before he pulled to the side and cut off the engine. Her mouth opened in question, the words dying on her lips as he thrust an iPod and earphones into her hand.

"Wear these. I'm sorry about this. Been fighting off the compulsion for too long today," he explained lowly. He did look incredibly tense.

Then he maneuvered into the backseat, tugging her with him. He positioned her on her back, the groan of leather filling the silence.

"Put those on. Hurry please," he urged.

As she set the ear buds and pressed play, he was tugging her clothes off. The music blared loudly and she stared up in question as Damon sucked his bottom lip in, something deep and concentrated behind his eyes. His fingers drifted down her inner thighs, parting her slightly. Her legs shook a little and she saw him mouth he was sorry again. But she wasn't shaking because she was frightened, it was just what his touch did to her.

She watched his middle finger disappear into his mouth and then she about slammed her head jerking back when he slid it inside of her. One of the ear buds fell out as she arched her neck from the way it felt to be touched like that by him.

"Keep those on and close your eyes. I'm calling Ric," he explained in the seconds it took for him to remove his finger and free himself with a sharp unzip of his jeans.

She obeyed, her thighs clenching tightly around him as he entered her with ease. It was as if her body had become used to him already. As the music drifted inside her, just as pulsating and fluid as he, she had to grab onto the paneling behind her as her body responded. She could feel the heated flush creep from her chest to her neck, until it settled at her cheeks.

Her eyes drifted open for a second, unfocused on his fingers that gripped the seat above her line of sight. It was detached this time, he was clearly thinking of something else. But he was all she could feel. For whatever reason, her body responded in the highest degree to this. She could feel that she was soaking the seat below her bottom. She could feel a throbbing inside that was so intense it hurt. Maybe it was because he moved slower, filling her and settling there before moving again. It made it tortuously erotic.

Her eyes flew open, this time connecting with his, when she felt his hand cover her mouth. She must have been making some noise. He was talking into his cell, sweat beading at his brow. Her lips parted and she could taste the salt of his fingers, running just the tip of her tongue against his skin. He clenched his jaw and gave her a look that resonated between admonishment and amusement.

Then he hung up the phone and tore her ear buds out, her mouth hot where his hand had been. That's when he picked up the pace and she found herself crying out within seconds. As she clenched and dipped around the length of him he cursed under his breath. She watched his eyes settle at her lips and what Ric said before echoed in her mind.

When she knew he was on the cusp of letting go, she pulled his mouth to hers.

As he emptied inside her his mouth formed words between her parted lips, his gasps and breath entering her mouth in hot bursts with a sweetness that was his.

This time, he fell slack over her, staying inside and breathing deeply against her neck. She slowly, tentatively, raked her fingers down his damp back and up again to rest at the base of his neck. When she swallowed, her skin pushed against his mouth and for a moment she found herself fighting the urge to ask him to drink from her.

As if reading her mind he whispered against her pulse, "You're lucky I already ate today."

She mindlessly let her fingers creep up his neck and tangle into his dark hair. Then after a moment she realized she was holding him tightly in her arms. She realized she was afraid of letting this go. It was both a wonderful and terrible feeling to admit to herself that she loved him too.

Xxxxx

It was Ric's idea to go out for the night. Elena rushed immediately up to her room the moment Damon brought them back to her home. She didn't want Ric to see her face flushed and mouth swollen, dampened from running her tongue along Damon's taste that seemed to seep like wine; staining every line of her lips.

Her body was fire; nerve endings flickering like flames and all reason just ashes left behind. Was it because it was so wrong that she took such pleasure in being touched by Damon Salvatore? Was this intense feeling of love she felt real? What was love anyway. She loved Stefan; swore by it. She could picture spending her entire life with him and be wholly happy. Her heart completely blossomed when they were together. That was love…right?

So what was this love? What was this lightning and fire and frighteningly disorienting state? If it was just lust, then what was this feeling in her chest that felt like the slow flap of raven wings; feather soft and heavy thumps. Something inside of her very being, the thing that made her Elena Gilbert and not Katherine Pierce or any other soul, was awoken by the very thing that made him Damon Salvatore. Just Damon Salvatore.

His darkness seemingly outweighed the tenderness, and even that reached out to her. Even that pulled her in and whispered promises.

She smiled at her reflection in the mirror that was streaked with remnants of her earlier suicide attempt. Charcoal black was smudged from squeezing her eyes so tightly as the orgasm from before had reached up and yanked her heart into her gut. She'd never be able to breathe in the leather of his seats or the dampness of his sweat seeping into the cotton of his shirt without being thrown back into that memory. It was a memory she vowed to keep forever.

She changed dazedly into some white shorts and a gauzy merlot sleeveless shirt that brought out the olive tone of her skin. Her hair was so tangled that she just threw it up in a messy knot, pulling a few strands out to frame her still-flushed face.

The men were waiting in Ric's car. Elena was grateful they'd be riding in that instead. She couldn't imagine sitting in Damon's back seat right now. She didn't argue when Damon let her sit in the front with Ric and nobody said anything when she turned the air up full blast despite it being a fairly cool night.

"You look nice," Elena complimented Ric lightly as they backed out of the driveway.

He was freshly shaven and in a crisp collared shirt with navy shorts. Such a clean and all American look to him. It was a stark comparison to Damon's dark and edgy appearance. He was in his usual designer jeans and fitted dark shirt that she'd learned just how it felt against her skin.

Ric just grunted in reply as if he didn't agree but really, he never could take a compliment.

"Are we going to that one place?" Damon asked from the back. Elena turned slightly to peer back at him. His eyes flicked to meet hers for a moment before returning towards the back of Ric's head. She felt her stomach jolt from that one moment his eyes had rested on hers. How had she never noticed the depth of his magnetism until now?

Ric turned down the air, tossing Elena a look; she'd just have to deal with how hot and bothered Damon had made her.

"Yeah, I prefer not running into my students," Ric replied. Elena knew he was more bothered by being seen with her by other students. People talked and it always got back to them.

The bar was more club-like than Mystic Grill. It wasn't a dressy place but there was more seating and a nice area down by a dance floor that nobody seemed to be using for dancing so much as for standing with drinks in their hand, shouting above the thrum of bass.

Elena followed the guys to a small table that had a circular cushioned seat wrapped around it, positioned between the bar and dance floor. As soon as Elena settled between them, a waitress with tumbling blonde hair and doll-like eyes cheerfully asked for their drink orders.

"Can I see your ID hun?" she asked Elena.

Elena quirked her eye brows when Damon immediately stood and led the waitress away by the elbow without a look backwards.

"What is he doing?" she muttered aloud.

"Making sure you don't get asked that again and probably having a snack. He likes to multitask…haven't you noticed?" Ric replied.

Elena felt her cheeks grow hot. She wasn't sure if he was referring to today in the car while Damon spoke to him on the phone or not but when she snuck a look at his face he seemed relaxed and more interested in the drinks headed towards the table from another waitress.

Elena knocked back the tall shot of bourbon that was set in front of her, barely wincing at the sear it left at the back of her throat.

"Easy," Ric murmured, knocking his own back.

A song, and then two more passed and Damon still hadn't returned. Elena got antsy and took Damon's shot too. Ric grumbled something incoherent at her and she noticed his hand flag down another waitress as Elena slid out of the seat.

She headed towards the bathroom, hoping to catch a glimpse of where Damon was. She wasn't sure why she was so bothered that he was gone. It was probably partially the fear of Klaus somehow gobbling him up out of her life too and partially the thought of his mouth against some woman's neck didn't settle well.

Elena noticed a curtain at the end of the hall past the bathrooms. Curiosity got the best of her so with a single finger, she slowly parted the dark velvety material down the middle. She expected lots of things. Things like blonde hair and bloodied lips, but never this.

Stefan stood close to Damon, arms crossed and tight. His expression was unrecognizable; Elena had never seen him look so void of emotion. Damon's face was every shade of pain as his mouth moved rapidly and hands made gestures that were clearly rigid with exasperation. It was hard to stay still. She wanted more than anything to rush into the room and demand to be let in.

She watched what happened next as if it were in slow motion. Damon took a staggering step backwards as Stefan wrapped his hands around the blonde waitress's neck and snapped it with ease, tossing her body to the side like a rag doll. She clasped her hands over her mouth to stifle any semblance of a scream or mere gasp. That's when Damon's eyes found hers through the curtain.

"Point taken brother. Take her with you huh? I'm just here for a drink, wasn't really prepared for cleaning up your messes," Damon stated loud enough for her to hear, stepping so that he blocked her view of Stefan.

"Next time it will be Elena. Understand?" Stefan asked coldly.

Elena about fell to her knees. Stefan couldn't possibly mean that. What had Klaus done to him?

She stood there in a haze before Damon finally appeared in front of her, the curtains sliding with a metallic scrape on their track. She let him lead her into the bathroom, a loud click indicating he'd locked the door behind them. It smelled like perfume and bleach and the bourbon in the back of her throat as she exhaled in a shuddering breath.

No words were spoken; he just lifted her so that she sat perched on the countertop between two sinks, using the rough pads of his thumbs to swipe away at the drizzle of tears that silently fell from her disbelieving eyes.

"'You knew he'd be here?" she asked, her voice taking on the wobble of emotion; tears like water against a crumbling dam.

He shook his head slowly, tucking a strand of dampened hair behind her ear, "No. He followed us."

"What's wrong with him?" she asked, hating that he wouldn't look her in the eye…hating that his own eyes looked rheumy and dejected.

"It's the blood. All these years and it's always the goddamn blood. Changes him," Damon muttered. He dropped his fingers from doing the things they were doing to her face so he could roughly rub at his own.

She didn't think, she just did what she needed to. Her arms wrapped around his neck and she breathed him in when his forehead rested heavily against her shoulder. She felt his hands find her hips and it reminded her of the way he held her against him when she rode atop him on her squeaky mattress.

After a moment he lifted his head and spoke against the skin of her temple, "Let's go get dunk. We'll deal with this tomorrow."

She slid off the counter, landing close to his body even though he took a step back. "No, tell me what he wanted."

Damon tilted his head to the side, his lips twisting in that way they did when he didn't like his options. She stared him down, the tears subsiding and her jaw setting stubbornly. It usually worked; he'd give in.

Finally he looked away and leaned a hand against a stall, drumming his fingers as he replied, "Klaus figured out he needs your blood to make the hybrids. Stefan will earn his freedom if he delivers you, but Stefan isn't himself right now. He doesn't want his freedom, he wants his revenge."

Elena rubbed her elbow absently, not understanding but trying to. "So he told you this?"

Damon shook his head, "No, that's what I found out on my own. He came here to warn me to stop looking into things. I think this time I should listen."

His gaze slid back towards hers in time with his palm slipping off the stall to dangle by his side. Her heart thudded audibly and she startled when someone pounded on the door. Damon glanced at it with disdain, muttering, "You go on back to Ric. I need to eat."

She didn't want to be anywhere else but near him. "No, I'll stay."

He looked at her in surprise, lips parting as if he were about to say something, but the pounding got louder so he yanked the door open. A girl with short chestnut hair and thick rimmed glasses stumbled in. Elena noted the moment's hesitation on her face when she eyed Damon's piercing stare.

"Don't make a sound," he told the girl in the smoothest voice she'd ever heard come from him.

The girl nodded and backed slowly towards the stall until she ran into it with a hollow thud. Elena was standing close enough that her own hand brushed against the girl's. She noticed the tremors of fear against her fingers.

Elena wanted to tell him to stop. She wanted to tell him the girl was too scared. But instead she asked softly; hesitantly, "Are you going to hurt her?"

"It won't hurt," he murmured, stepping forward so that he hovered over the girl.

Elena had been bitten before and it had hurt. She couldn't imagine a feed that wasn't messy and brutal; yet, she couldn't peel her eyes away from Damon's every move. The way he took the girl's chin gently, tilting her head to the side; eyes turning red and veiny…it didn't scare her. She'd always viewed this part of being a vampire as something monstrous, but the fangs that slid past his row of neat teeth sank in almost seductively slow. The girl stilled as Damon drank soundlessly. Elena noticed his thumb running soothingly up and down the girls tilted neck. A pang of guilt hit her; she had always assumed being a vampire meant being a monster. Damon had done his share of monstrous things, but seeing the way he handled this girl now…

When he unlatched, Elena winced at the wound on the girl's neck. It looked painful but the girl looked dazed and stared up at Damon almost adoringly. He bit into his wrist, forcing it into the girl's mouth. Elena knew that taste all too well now. It was amazing watching the wound heal in front of her eyes.

Damon cleaned the girl's neck for her, using a paper towel he dampened after reaching around Elena. The veins in his eyes were slowly subsiding, pulsing slower and disappearing under his porcelain skin. He compelled the girl to forget what had happened and opened the stall for her so she could go about her business.

Just as the trickle of the girl emptying her bladder filled the silence, Damon turned his full attention on Elena. She stared at how blue his eyes had turned, noting the color coming back to his face. She wondered if after a feed was as close to looking like their former human selves as vampires could get.

His mouth was swollen and glistening with still-warm blood. Elena reached out and swiped it away from his lower lip with the pad of her middle finger. The way his lip moved in a lazy snap under her touch caused a burn and twinge to ignite. She was about to wipe it away when he grabbed her wrist and thrust her middle finger between his lips, rolling his tongue around her.

Usually, his kisses were cool. The insides of his mouth always reminded her of the way breath felt sucked in against a peppermint. But now, after this feed, he was flaming hot.

She let out a small sound. As small as it was, it was full of so much.

He let go of her wrist and took a step back, his lips leaving her finger coated and cold as air hit.

"You're killing me girl," he admitted, stepping slightly out of the way as the stall opened and his previous meal walked around them to use the sink, humming merrily.

Elena fought the urge to settle her palms against the planes of his chest and push her tongue against his. Her body was screaming with curiosity; his mouth hot instead of cold, the taste of another fresh on his tongue. That look in his eyes.

"What are you thinking?" she asked softly. She's always wondering what's in his mind. She never asked; never dared to before.

He blinked slowly, the corner of one side of his mouth lifting into a curl of a smile. She'd always loved that lopsided smile.

"I'm thinking about what it would be like to make you look at me like that without having to think about saving my brother. I'm thinking about how selfish it is to be happy I've been given the chance to know what it feels like to have you cum while nestled deeply inside you. I'm thinking about how good you smell right now and how much I want you to feel what it is to be fed on by me," he spoke evenly. Not an ounce of hesitance.

The girl left, the music leaking loudly inside the bathroom as the door pushed open in her exit. He asked Elena for her thoughts in return, stepping so close.

She answered truthfully because truth was all that was left. She'd spent a long time ignoring things that she knew good and well were there all along.

Her voice sounded whispery, almost matching the fluttering in her belly, "I feel like I'm no better than Katherine."

He breathed long and slow through his nose. Time stretched before he finally spoke, but she barely noticed with the way his eyes bore into hers. Sometimes she forgot that he wasn't human; Stefan too. It had become such a fact in her life that there were vampires and other supernatural creatures present; hell, she was a supernatural being too. Then there were moments like this where time stood still and she was entranced; the minutes he took to ponder and peer expanding. He was a vampire; it struck her suddenly. He was an antique, a token from the past. He was dark and dangerous and absolutely seductively hypnotizing. From the crow-black hair and steel eyes; slender fangs and cool skin…he was enchanting.

Unlike Stefan, he radiated the qualities that made him this creature. Stefan spent his life suppressing it and it was clear as to why. Stefan's vampire qualities made him a monster. Damon's drifted and seeped between heaven and hell. Elena saw so clearly now.

He interrupted her thoughts, warm coppery breath tickling deliciously along her skin, "Tell me why."

She swallowed thickly, eyes falling to his lips like the slow trickle of a raindrop against glass. She noticed his fingers twitch at his sides, stealing her attention from his swollen mouth.

"I want you both," she whispered. She cringed at her words. It was the first time she'd said it aloud. Hell, it was the first time she'd even admitted it to herself let alone to him.

"What do you want from me?" he asked lowly, stepping closer and pressing her against the side of the stall with just his presence.

Her mind was foggy; so many thoughts. Her body was burning with what she could only identify as raw need. It was a good question and with so many answers swirling in her pudding-like brain, she replied, "Everything."

"And my brother?" He asked, running just a single fingertip up her left arm. She felt a pulse of something deep in her gut warm her entire boy.

She thought of the before; deep devotion and a sweet love. She thought of the now; empty eyes and death threats. If now were forever she'd say nothing. She had always been so sure of it. You just can't love more than one person at the same time; a whole heart doesn't duplicate into two. She dazedly pictured her split image, Katherine so in love with Stefan that she basically spat on Damon. Perhaps it did duplicate into two. Perhaps she was meant for Damon.

Then she smiled small and almost privately at her wishful thinking. It was so like her to try to find a way to make it not her fault. She didn't want to be a bad person. Didn't matter that maybe she just was.

His finger moved to her neck, increasing in pressure and holding still when he landed on the thick pulse. She could feel it then, thick and heavy and too fast for a human within their comfort zone.

He moved closer, his knees knocking into hers. Their mouths were close, but they'd been closer. Even so, her pulse raced almost dangerously fast. It earned her the most beautifully sexy thing she'd ever seen cross his face. His lips twitched into a smile before he lightly bit his lower lip and pressed even harder against her neck, his thumb then extending to rest under her chin.

He tilted her face slightly so that her eyes were forced to lock onto his own.

"You are nothing like Katherine. Sweet girl, she wanted me for far less."

Then his mouth crashed into hers and she swore there was never anything as good this. She wasn't sure how far it would have gone, for Ric came pounding on the door, splitting them in two. Damon dropped one more kiss at the tip of her nose before opening the bathroom door.

"What the fuck, I was terrified," Ric exclaimed, throwing his hands up at both of them.

"Sorry," Elena murmured, still breathing unevenly.

They followed him back to the table, trying to switch to what they had come here for; a new atmosphere to drink away their sorrows.

Elena tried to do as Damon suggested; just drink it all away. Let the mind get fuzzy enough that things bleed together, never in place long enough to focus on. Damon, the great pretender, laughed just as hard as Ric as the drinks flew and flew and flew.

She looked for Stefan in every face, every dark shadow of the bar. She was scared of him, but also worried for him. She still loved who he was before, even though that definition had become very skewed as of late. She made excuses, _I have to pee; I have to order a water; I want to request a song_. Every time she scanned the room, willing Stefan's hands to grab her and steal her away. She could get through to him, she knew it. Drunken thoughts clouded the lusty blues with crimson. Bleed together in a jumble of alternating Salvatore voices, eyes, mouths, bodies…

It wasn't Stefan's hands that grabbed her though, it was Damon's; cool and rough. He was steadying her and looking at her with such sadness in his eyes. Then there was Ric and the car and then her bed. Then there was nothing.

xxxxx

Elena knew without giving it much thought that Damon had talked to Ric about getting Stefan back. She was sure there was a plan in place and it was just a matter of time before she helplessly sat on the sidelines and waited for everything to be decided without and for her.

Ric seemed less tense and it almost felt like everything was normal. Damon sat with them at the breakfast table as they ate, but she could barely touch her food. Her stomach was fluttering with nerves. She just nursed a drink she'd made herself. Somehow she'd figured out a way to make plans of her own without touching on what she'd been compelled against by Klaus. She used her emotions without thought and what she had decided scared her.

They grew silent when she pushed away from the table with a loud scrape of wood on tile. She shut herself in her room, her palms sweating.

It didn't take long for Damon to slowly enter and lay on the bed with her. They stared silently at one another, cheeks pressed on hands and noses close to touching.

"Everything's going to be okay," he said softly.

She said nothing even though she had a lot to say. A lot to ask.

Then the door opened and Ric shuffled in. Damon's eyes never left hers even when the tears started to fall.

"No," she whispered when Ric sat on the other side of her, unclasping the vervain necklace. Damon stilled her hands firmly when she tried to stop Ric's quickly moving fingers.

The more she struggled the firmer Damon stilled her with a look of despair all over the face she'd come to love looking at unwaveringly.

"I can't forget," she whispered.

His eyes closed tight then, "Elena, don't."

Ric stood to hang the necklace on the bedpost and spoke softly, "My vervain stash is lower. You'll need to test her. I think it's in her system."

Elena cringed, sliding off the bed and walking slowly backwards towards the door. She knew it was useless, but her body didn't want to listen. Why make it easy on them. This was torture.

She turned and ran, flying down the stairs with such ease she wondered if she just might make it to the car. Front door was unlocked so she rushed outside, leaping off the porch like she did when she was just a kid. The sun was setting and the air was cool. The smell of freshly cut grass invaded her senses as her body pumped adrenaline at an alarming rate. Her feet hit the yard in a few stumbles but she managed to keep up her momentum as she headed towards Damon's car. He always left the keys in the ignition.

Her mind idly wondered why they hadn't stopped her yet just before she reached the car. Then she was on her back, Damon's face hovering above her own. A pain hit the back of her head but it was gone as soon as it came. She struggled under his grasp, screaming out for help.

"Elena, calm down," Ric called as he fell to his knees, winded, beside them.

Damon wasted no time, as soon as her eyes tearfully locked onto his he asked, "Is there any vervain in your system?"

"No," she immediately replied.

"The longer we do this the longer it takes me to go save Stefan. Do you want Stefan back?" his eyes were staring so deeply it was impossible to look away.

"Yes," she replied quietly.

This time he asked slower; softer, "Do you have vervain in your system Elena?"

"No," she whispered, flexing her fingers uncomfortably under his heavy grasp to her wrists.

"She's lying," Ric insisted.

Elena said nothing, she was too entranced by Damon's stare.

Damon's jaw tensed and relaxed several times before he asked her a question that was unfair. To ask her this under compulsion was low but she supposed she understood it was the only one she wouldn't be able to answer right away if she didn't have vervain in her system.

"Who do you love more. Stefan or me?" he asked lowly and as if he hated himself more with each syllable spoken.

"You," she whispered.

The look on his face was shock. He just stared at her, his eyes slightly wider.

"Is she lying now Ric?" Damon asked slowly, eyes narrowing, throat straining against a swallow.

"Drink from her, if she has a drop in her you'll know," Ric commanded.

Damon growled and dropped his head, his hair brushing her heaving chest, "We don't have _time_ for this."

"Drink from me," she added.

He looked back up into her eyes, searching her face. Finally, he muttered, "I believe her."

He let go of one of her wrists to grab her chin and stare deeply into her eyes.

"You went to sleep after your birthday, you never found Stefan and you haven't seen me since the party. You love and miss Stefan with all your heart." Damon's voice was monotone and face void of emotion as he compelled her.

Then he was off of her and there was nothing but orange- blue sky.

xxxxx

Elena was just slipping under her covers for the night when she felt the presence in her room.

"Stefan?" she asked tentatively.

Something felt wrong. She willed her heart to stay as steady as possible but it was a pointless effort; as soon as she saw the familiar dark eyes and bouncy chestnut curls, she knew she had every reason to be scared.

"I've been sent here on strict orders," Katherine's voice sliced through the darkness as she stepped into the moonlight that seeped through the curtains.

"RIC!" Elena screamed as loudly as she could, scrambling out of her bed and running towards the vanity where shards of glass still sat.

"Oh they aren't here. I waited until they ran off on a mission that will surely fail. I'm just here for your blood," she shrugged, twirling a strand of hair around a finger.

"Take some and leave," Elena said shakily, her hand gripping a thick piece of glass. It should be just enough to jab into Katherine's neck to buy her some time.

"I need more than some. I think I need it all," Katherine shrugged.

Elena went cold, this was the worst case scenario. She had no out. Nobody would swoop in and rescue her. Nobody would hear her screams.

"I'll kill myself before I let that happen," Elena stated boldly.

Katherine let out a bold laugh and flashed over to her, "I'll still just drain you dry, what's it to me? Your blood for my freedom. Easiest ticket so far."

Elena went to stab the glass into Katherine's neck but barely nicked it before her wrist snapped painfully in Katherine's grip.

"Stupid girl. It's a shame not everything is passed through doppelgangers. You're pretty but lack survival smarts," Katherine sneered as Elena cried out at the pain shooting down her arm.

Elena saw him before Katherine did. Her heart leapt in hope but it quickly diminished when she saw the cold and void look behind once sparkling hazel eyes.

"We need to bring her in one piece," Stefan called from the doorway before taking his time approaching the duo.

Katherine kept Elena's wrist in her grasp but turned around quickly to face him, causing Elena to shriek out again.

"Why exactly are you here?" Katherine asked icily.

"Klaus sent me. He thought better of leaving you in charge. I think his words were _The girl will do anything for her freedom but I don't have time for her to play cat and mouse. You know how she gets with the doppelganger,"_ Stefan replied, plucking Katherine's fingers off of Elena's wrist one by one.

"And he thinks you are trustworthy when it comes to this? You aren't fooling me Stefan. You probably have this whole thing planned out with your idiotic brother," Katherine sneered, stepping away from Elena to tousle her hair and peer out the bay window.

Elena's wrist hurt more than anything she'd felt thus far. She glanced shakily down and saw that both bones were clearly crushed. She tried not to but tears of pain and fear and something she couldn't identify but it had everything to do with Stefan, trickled hotly down her cheeks.

Stefan took her by the other wrist, never looking her in the eyes even though she stared at his face the whole time. He was leading her to the door when Katherine's voice halted them.

"With all the blood coursing through your veins and your senses are really that off? Or are you just going to ignore the obvious?"

Elena watched Stefan's cool demeanor falter for a moment. He looked sad for one second and angry for the next. She watched him suck it all back in and return to the stoic face; empty and hollow.

Katherine tore off Elena's comforter, tossing it towards them. Elena furrowed her brows, confused for a moment. The pain in her wrist trickled into the background as her mind took in what Katherine was getting at.

"Hm, messy," Katherine smirked, nodding towards the blood stain on her sheets.

Elena's heart thumped loudly as Stefan stared unwaveringly at Katherine. He, after a long stare down, tugged her a little too hard out of the door and down the stairs. She stumbled on a few but he didn't slow his pace. Katherine was right behind them, the heavy clicks of her heels on the wooden stairs jolting Elena's nerves.

"Please let me go," she whispered into Stefan's ear as he reached over her to buckle her into the passenger seat.

She looked for any sign of kindness in his eyes. This man loved her once. He cradled her in his bare arms every morning and left little notes in her purse for her to find during school. He took care of her when she had the flu; soup and a Dawson's Creek marathon. He brushed her hair after she showered and didn't laugh at her when she cried over a commercial. He checked on her friends and protected them as fiercely as he protected her. Who was this person she stared at now?

He said nothing, just shut her door and slid into his seat a few seconds later. Katherine poked her head through his door before he got a chance to close it, her hair brushing the side of his face. He waved it away, looking up at her with clear annoyance written across his sharp features.

"I'll be riding with you, I don't trust you any more than you trust me. I will have my freedom," she stated evenly.

"Then get in," he snapped back.

She widened her eyes as if he were an idiot and gestured at the fact he had to get out for her to do that. He sighed heavily and let her get in, throwing his seat back down with more force than necessary. Elena slid her unhurt hand under her crushed wrist, biting back another moan of pain. She had to be stronger than this. People had fought for their lives with more than a broken wrist before. She had to think; be smart…play on their weaknesses.

The road crawled beneath them, his headlights capturing the line of trees and stream of grey asphalt like the static on an empty tv station. Every bump and turn and stop and go and dip caused her wrist to shift and pain rolled through her. She wondered why her body wasn't doing her any favors. Where was the shock to take some of the pain away? Maybe it was because she was fighting so hard to be aware and sharp.

"Maybe we should heal her, it looks like she's going to puke," Katherine stated from the back.

"Maybe you shouldn't have hurt her," he replied simply, glancing in the rearview mirror.

The groan of leather sounded off before Katherine positioned herself between them, elbows leaning on the center console.

"Maybe she shouldn't have tried to embed glass into my neck. You aren't going to puke are you Elena?" Katherine asked, cocking her head and looking at her with faux pity.

"No, I'm fine," Elena replied roughly. Her voice was scratchy and weak, probably not a good sign. And really, throwing up sounded nice. It would be some sort of relief.

"Great, so I heard about the whole compulsion thing. Klaus is psychotic but very good at his twisted methods. Tell me, how many times _did_ you diddle the eldest Salvatore?" Katherine's eyes were sparkling with merriment.

Elena opened her mouth but clamped it shut when Stefan pushed Katherine into the backseat with extreme force.

"Ouch," Katherine muttered.

The car swerved a little under his efforts, causing her wrist to scream out to her. She bit her lip until it bled. She bit it so hard that once they arrived, her mouth was coated in it. When Stefan pulled her out of the car she audibly gagged. It was the only moment he showed her any kindness. He led her to some bushes where she threw up what she'd drank earlier. Vervain and Damon's blood.

Stefan stared her down as she wiped her mouth. She hoped the blood beading at her lip would pass for what she just hurled. She hoped she still had some of it still in her system or she wasn't getting out of this alive.

"Here," he said simply, biting into his hand and holding it near her mouth.

She swallowed hard and held her wrist close to her abdomen, shaking her head slowly, "No."

His brows furrowed slowly, eyes calculating. Finally he wiped the blood on her already bloodied shirt and nudged her towards the looming house. Katherine was already inside, hovering in the hallway with her arms crossed tensely. The girl looked like she could sprint off any moment, her freedom was so near.

Elena's heart skipped a beat when she saw Damon seated in the room Stefan pushed her into. Their eyes met and his gaze drifted towards the arm she cradled stiffly. He asked dully, "You do that brother?"

Stefan nodded towards a chair in the middle of the room that had several IV bags next to it.

"No, I did," Katherine replied cheerfully as she sauntered towards the chair, pushing Elena's shoulders down to force her into a sitting position.

That's when Elena noticed Tyler was in the room, seated tensely to her left near the door. _Oh God, they are going to turn Tyler into a hybrid with her blood_.

"Tyler, run," she told him faintly. She was feeling off.

"What did you do to her?" Damon demanded loudly.

"I can't," Tyler replied, his eyes defeated.

Everyone must be compelled. Everyone but her. Ric had been right, she'd ingested a healthy dose of vervain and Damon's blood, every intention of turning. She'd planned on doing so that night. Planning triggered suicide via compulsion but she never got the chance. Katherine had interrupted her plans and now she was stuck as a living and breathing blood bag. No matter that she threw up most of Damon's blood, she had to have some left in her system. She didn't want Stefan or anybody to know that she was willing to turn. It was part of her own plan to rescue both brothers. She'd just have to figure out the mess that came with it later. _If_ she could even get out of this.

She felt sweat bead at her forehead and chills started to travel through her body. She tried to suppress anything that signaled weakness but failed. She shook and her teeth started to chatter. The pain was too much. Maybe she should have just taken Stefan's blood when it was offered.

"What did you do to her?" Damon asked lowly.

She suddenly remembered Ric. Where was Ric anyway? Where was Klaus?

"She got sick before we came in. I offered to heal her but she wouldn't take it," Stefan replied, stepping so that he blocked Damon's view and stooped down to peer at her.

Elena knew she was just finally feeling the effects of shock and maybe just a build up of the entire situation. She was scared and she was devastated. Her body was on overload.

"I'm so sorry," she murmured to Stefan's looming face.

His face faltered once again but before she could push further, Klaus's voice filled the room.

"Ah, I see everyone is here. Katherine, collect a bag of Elena's blood please," he stated loudly, taking a chair and scraping it across the floor until he was seated closely and directly in front of her.

Her good arm was snatched away and strapped swiftly to the arm of the chair. She let out a choked cry of pain when her hurt wrist thudded into her lap. She could feel a bone shift inside and she about saw white from the sting.

"Oh love, I do hope you realize I have no intentions of killing you. Your blood will serve me for many years. Stefan deserves a reward for his loyalty anyhow. Speaking of, Stefan, you and your brother may go to the basement. This isn't going to be easy on the eyes," Klaus spoke softer.

Elena's eyes flew towards Damon's and something passed between them. He looked almost surprised, reminding her that he thought she was compelled to remember nothing of what had happened between them. She was supposed to be the same old Elena; in love with Stefan and tolerant of Damon.

The needle stung for a moment, Elena briefly wondered when Katherine learned to do all this. She supposed being so old she'd learn one way or another lots of things. Perhaps she shot up heroin at some point. Who knows. Elena's thoughts were all over the place.

"Are you sure she can handle losing any blood right now? I mean look at her," Tyler spoke from her side.

Klaus's eyes flickered away from hers and she watched him purse his lips. He really was an attractive man. She thought about what he must have been like all those years ago as a human. She couldn't even imagine living so long, the world had changed so drastically. What was with all these ancient men being both frightening and beautiful in these strange ways. She hated him for killing Jenna and for turning Stefan into someone else. She hated him for forcing this complicated twist on who Damon was to her. She also felt grateful that it happened.

"She comes from a tough line. She'll be just fine," Klaus assured him as if he cared.

"What are you going to do with him?" Elena asked softly, Damon on her mind.

"Turn him into a hybrid my dear," Klaus replied curtly, eying the blood filling the bag hanging above her head with greedy eyes.

"Damon," she murmured, blinking against the dizziness.

"Oh…I see…" Klaus said, his lips curling into a smile. At first glance he appeared to be a friendly and honest face. Looks can be so deceiving in this alternate world of vampires and werewolves.

"Take me and leave them. Please." She felt her head droop a little.

"That'll be enough Katherine," Klaus told her.

Elena's eyes slowly closed, though she could still hear what was going on around her. She heard the tape rip off her skin and the crinkle of her blood bag. She heard Tyler struggle and cry out. She heard footsteps before she was lifted out of the chair. Her wrist hurt vaguely but it all seeped away. Then there was just the ringing in her ears and cool hard ground beneath her. She thought she heard Damon…or maybe it was Stefan…and then nothing.

Xxxx


End file.
